The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich William Shirer Review

1960 non-fiction book past William L. Shirer

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Cover of the first edition
Author	William L. Shirer
Country	Us
Language	English language
Bailiwick	Nazi Frg
Genre	History
Publisher	Simon & Schuster
Publication date	October 17, 1960[1]
Media type	Print (hardcover and paperback)
Pages	1,245
ISBN	0-671-72868-vii (1990 paperback)
OCLC	22888118

The Rising and Fall of the Tertiary Reich: A History of Nazi Germany is a volume by the announcer William Fifty. Shirer, in which the author chronicles the ascent and fall of Nazi Germany from the birth of Adolf Hitler in 1889 to the cease of World War Ii in Europe in 1945. It was commencement published in 1960, past Simon & Schuster in the Us. Information technology was a bestseller in both the United States and Europe, and a disquisitional success outside Germany; in Germany, criticism of the book stimulated sales. The volume was feted by journalists, as reflected by its receipt of the National Book Award for non-fiction,^[2] but the reception from bookish historians was mixed.

The volume is based upon captured Nazi documents, the available diaries of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, of General Franz Halder, and of the Italian Strange Minister Galeazzo Ciano, bear witness and testimony from the Nuremberg trials, British Foreign Office reports, and the author's recollection of his six years in Deutschland (from 1934 to 1940) as a journalist, reporting on Nazi Germany for newspapers, the United Press International (UPI), and CBS Radio. The work was written and initially published in four parts, but a larger ane-volume edition has go more common.

Content and themes [edit]

The Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich is Shirer's comprehensive historical interpretation of the Nazi era, positing that German history logically proceeded from Martin Luther to Adolf Hitler;^{[iii] [a] [ page needed ]} and that Hitler'due south rise to power was an expression of High german national character, non of totalitarianism as an ideology that was internationally stylish in the 1930s.^{[four] [5] [six]} The author summarised his perspective: "[T]he course of German language history ... made blind obedience to temporal rulers the highest virtue of Germanic man, and put a premium on servility."^[7] This reportorial perspective^{[ clarification needed ]}, the Sonderweg (special path or unique course) interpretation of High german history, was so common in American scholarship. Yet, despite extensive footnotes and references, some academic critics consider its interpretation of Nazism to be flawed.^[viii] The volume also includes (identified) speculation, such as the theory that SS Primary Heinrich Müller later on joined the NKVD of the USSR.

Development history [edit]

The editor for the volume was Joseph Barnes, a foreign editor of the New York Herald Tribune, a former editor of PM, another New York newspaper, and a former speechwriter for Wendell Willkie. Barnes was an old friend of Shirer. The manuscript was very late and Simon & Schuster threatened to cancel the contract several times; each time Barnes would win a reprieve for Shirer. The original title of the book was Hitler's Nightmare Empire with The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as the sub-title. The title and cover had already been sent out in catalogs when Robert Gottlieb decided that both title and embrace had to become. Nina Bourne decided that they should use the sub-title as the title and art director Frank Metz designed the black jacket bearing the swastika. Initially bookstores across the country protested displaying the swastika and threatened not to stock the book. The controversy shortly blew over and the cover shipped with the symbol.^{[9] [ page needed ]}

Success and acclaim [edit]

In the U.S., where it was published on October 17, 1960, The Ascension and Fall of the Third Reich sold more than ane million hardcover copies, 2-thirds via the Book of the Calendar month Club, and more than one million paperback copies. It won the 1961 National Book Honor for Nonfiction^[two] and the Carey–Thomas Award for non-fiction.^[10] In 1962, the Reader'south Assimilate magazine serialization reached some 12 million boosted readers.^{[xi] [12]} In a New York Times Book Review, Hugh Trevor-Roper praised it as "a splendid work of scholarship, objective in method, audio in judgment, inescapable in its conclusions."^[13] The book sold well in Britain, France, Italy,^[xiv] and in Westward Germany, because of its international recognition, bolstered by German editorial attacks.^[fifteen]

Both its recognition by journalists as a great history book and its pop success surprised Shirer^[xvi] as the publisher commissioned a kickoff press of only 12,500 copies. More than fifteen years after the terminate of the Second World War, neither Shirer nor the publisher anticipated much popular interest in Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) or Nazi Federal republic of germany (1933–45).

Criticism [edit]

Nearly all journalists praised the book. Many scholars best-selling Shirer'south achievement but some condemned it.^[10] The harshest criticism came from those who disagreed with the Sonderweg or "Luther to Hitler" thesis. In W Deutschland, the Sonderweg interpretation was most universally rejected in favor of the view that Nazism was simply one instance of totalitarianism that arose in diverse countries. Gavriel Rosenfeld asserted in 1994 that Rise and Fall was unanimously condemned by German historians^{[ who? ]} in the 1960s, and considered dangerous to relations between America and West Frg, as it might inflame anti-High german sentiments in the United States.^{[17] [ additional commendation(s) needed ]}

Klaus Epstein listed what he contended were "four major failings": a crude agreement of High german history; a lack of balance, leaving important gaps; no understanding of a modern totalitarian regime; and ignorance of current scholarship of the Nazi period.^[16]

Elizabeth Wiskemann concluded in a review that the volume was "not sufficiently scholarly nor sufficiently well written to satisfy more academic demands... It is besides long and cumbersome... Mr Shirer, has, still compiled a manual... which will certainly bear witness useful."^[18]

Nearly 36 years after the book's publication, controversial LGBT activist Peter Tatchell criticized the book's treatment of the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Frg.^[19] In the philosopher Jon Stewart's album The Hegel Myths and Legends (1996), The Rise and Autumn of the Third Reich is listed as a work that has propagated "myths" about the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.^[xx]

In 2004 the historian Richard J. Evans, author of The Third Reich Trilogy (2003–2008), conceded that Rise and Autumn is a "readable full general history of Nazi Germany" and that "there are good reasons for [its] success." Evans contended that Shirer worked outside the bookish mainstream and that Shirer's account was not informed past the historical scholarship of the time. He has also publicly said on YouTube the work "...by Shirer is terrible" without giving reason.^[21]

Adaptation and publication [edit]

The Rising and Fall of the Third Reich
Directed past	Jack Kaufman
Narrated past	Richard Basehart
Theme music composer	Lalo Schifrin
No. of episodes	iii
Production
Executive producer	Mel Stuart
Editor	John Soh
Product companies	David L. Wolper Productions MGM Television
Release
Original network	ABC
Original release	1968 (1968)

A television adaptation was broadcast in the United States on the ABC tv set network in 1968, consisting of a one-hr episode aired each night over three nights.

The book has been reprinted many times since information technology was published in 1960. The 1990 edition contained an afterword whereby Shirer gave a brief discourse on how his book was received when information technology was initially published and the future for Deutschland during German reunification in the atomic historic period. Electric current^{[ when? ]} in-print editions are:

• ISBN 0-671-72868-vii (Simon & Schuster, US, 1990 paperback)
• ISBN 0-09-942176-iii (Arrow Books, Uk, 1990 paperback)
• Folio Order edition (2004 hardback)
• ISBN 84-7069-368-9 (Grupo Océano, 1987 SP, hardcover)

There is also an audiobook version, released in 2010 by Blackstone Audio and read past Grover Gardner.

Encounter as well [edit]

• Berlin Diary
• List of books by or about Adolf Hitler
• The Collapse of the Tertiary Republic, also past Shirer

References [edit]

Explanatory notes

1. ^ "The notion that 'rectitude and authenticity [were] integrally German attributes, in contrast to Roman or Latin influences which were degrading' held to accept originated with Luther developed with German Romanticism in the 19th Century, and culminated with National Socialism." Johnson 2001.^{[ page needed ]}

Citations

1. ^ "Books Published Today". The New York Times: 26. October 17, 1960.
2. ^ ^{a b} "National Book Awards – 1961". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-02-20.
3. ^ Rosenfeld 1994, p. 102.
4. ^ Shirer p. 236.
5. ^ Rosenfeld 1994, pp. 101–02.
6. ^ Evans 2004, p. xxiv.
7. ^ Shirer, p. 1080.
8. ^ Rosenfeld 1994, p. 106.
9. ^ Korda, Michael (1999). Some other Life : A Memoir of Other People (1st ed.). New York: Random Business firm. ISBN0679456597.
10. ^ ^{a b} Rosenfeld 1994, p. 101.
11. ^ Cedar Rapids Gazette, 9 October 1960, p. 47.
12. ^ Rosenfeld 1994, pp. 100–01.
13. ^ William 50. Shirer (1990). The Rise and Autumn of the Third Reich (3rd ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 1146.
14. ^ Shirer, p. 1145.
15. ^ Rosenfeld 1994, p. 96.
16. ^ ^{a b} Epstein 1961, p. 230.
17. ^ Rosenfeld 1994, pp. 95–96, 98.
18. ^ Wiskemann 1961, pp. 234–35.
19. ^ Peter Tatchell: No place in History for Gay Victims of Nazism, The Contained, July two, 1995
20. ^ Stewart, Jon, ed. (1996). The Hegel Myths and Legends. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. p. 383. ISBN0-8101-1301-5.
21. ^ Evans 2004, pp. sixteen–xvii.

Bibliography

• Epstein, Klaus. The Review of Politics, Vol. 23, No. 2 (April 1961). "Shirer's History of Nazi Germany."
• Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich (2004) Penguin Press HC. ISBN 1-59420-004-1
• Johnson, Lonnie Rf. Key Europe: Enemies, Neighbors and Friends (2001) Oxford University Press, The states. ISBN 0-19-514826-6
• Rosenfeld, Gavriel D. (1995). "The Reception of William L. Shirer'southward the Rise and Fall of the Tertiary Reich in the United States and Due west Germany, 1960–62" (PDF). Journal of Gimmicky History. 29 (1): 95–128. doi:ten.1177/002200949402900104. S2CID 159606806.
• Shanahan, William O. ([https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEEDB1730F932A25751C1A966958260 Obituary) The American Historical Review, Vol. 68, No. ane. (October 1962).
• Siemon Netto, Uwe. The Fabricated Luther: Refuting Nazi Connections and Other Modern Myths (2007) Concordia Publishing Firm. ISBN 0-7586-0855-1
• Wiskemann, Elizabeth. International Affairs, Vol. 37, No. 2. (April 1961)

External links [edit]

• The Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich, (1960 Edition)
• Review of the book past Bryan Hiatt

Documentary

• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich at IMDb
• The Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich at AllMovie

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Third_Reich

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