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5.0 von 5 Sternen
If You Read Just One Book About Nazi Germany...., 15. April 2000
This should be the one. 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...
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5.0 von 5 Sternen
A classic of historical journalism, 13. März 2000
You are there, even if you don't want to be. The terrible story of how a group of madmen brought sorrow to the planet is brought vividly to life in this classic history. It is a titanic work on a titanic subject. The author, Bill Shirer, took some risks. He interposed his own judgements and feelings with the facts which he sets down. Seeing as how Shirer saw the Nazi regime with his own eyes, and his revulsion is based on his own experience, and almost all of his readers will share that revulsion, the risk pays off. Few historians could take a risk like this, or should. Because of what Shirer (and the world) saw and suffered, he did right. Do not rely solely upon this book to learn about the Holocaust. The section of this book which retells the story of this ultimate crime is based on German documents and testimony gathered immediately after the war (and before almost all of the surviving perpetrators decided to collectively shut up). As a result, the section uniformly treats the Jewish and other prey of the killing system as passive victims. A balanced view is required, to say the least, and I am sure that most readers with a strong enough stomach to tackle this book will go on to read the testimonies of survivors and get closer to a real view of this almost unbelieveable story. However, the German sources quoted here at great length are useful should there be anyone reading this book who is so unfortunate as to believe that the Holocaust never happened. It did, and you can read about it here, in the words and documents of the men with blood on their hands. Once again, this is a true, scary, unforgettable classic of the art of historical journalism.
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5.0 von 5 Sternen
A riveting, spellbounding investigation of unmitigated Evil., 15. April 2000
This very readable history is indispensable in understanding the political psychosis which propelled a self-styled Fuehrer to fashion, with horrifying consequences, a Third Reich which came close to achieving total domination of Europe (and perhaps even the world itself.) Shirer witnessed first hand Hitler's consolidation of political power in the dying days of the Weimar Republic and likewise the grim aftermath of postwar ravaged Europe. Shirer's impassioned recognition and denunciation of pure, unmitigated Evil may be out of fashion in our ironical, postmodern age, but his first hand experience with Nazi Germany lends a moral authority to his critique and, along with his meticulous documentation of Nazi archives, is the book's main strength. Sadly, in the fifty some odd years since Hitler's defeat, the capacity for evil and the appetite for mass destruction still burns within human hearts. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH should be essential reading for a new century and a new millennium. As Shirer writes in the foreword: "In our age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on an uninhabited planet."
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