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The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

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The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
File:TheRiseandFalloftheThirdReich.jpg
30th anniversary cover
AuthorWilliam L. Shirer
LanguageEnglish
SubjectNazi Germany
GenreHistory, nonfiction
PublisherSimon & Schuster
Publication date
1960
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback)
Pages1,245
ISBNISBN 0-671-72868-7 (1990 paperback) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character
OCLC22888118

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is a non-fiction book by William L. Shirer chronicling the general history of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. It was first published in 1960, by Simon & Schuster in the United States, where it won a National Book Award.[1] It was a bestseller in both the U.S. and Europe, and a critical success outside Germany, where harsh criticism stimulated sales. Academic historians were generally negative.

Rise and Fall is based upon captured Third Reich documents, the available diaries of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, General Franz Halder, and of the Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano, evidence and testimony from the Nuremberg trials, British Foreign Office reports, and the author's recollection of six years reporting on the Third Reich for newspapers, the United Press International (UPI), and CBS Radio —terminated by Nazi Party censorship in 1940.[2]

Content and themes

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is a comprehensive historical interpretation of the Nazi era, positing that German history logically proceeded from Martin Luther to Adolf Hitler;[3][a][page needed] that Hitler’s ascension to power was an expression of German national character, not of totalitarianism as an ideology that was internationally fashionable in the 1930s.[4][5][6] Author William L. Shirer summarised his perspective: "...the course of German 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 interpretation of German history (special path or unique course) was then common in American scholarship. Yet, despite extensive footnotes and references, some academic critics consider its interpretation of Nazism flawed.[8] The book also includes (identified) speculation, such as the theory that SS Chief Heinrich Müller afterward joined the NKVD of the USSR.

Success and acclaim

In the U.S., where it was published 17 October 1960, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich sold more than one million hardcover copies, two-thirds via the Book of the Month Club, and more than one million paperback copies. It won the 1961 National Book Award for Nonfiction[1] and the Carey-Thomas Award for non-fiction.[9] In 1962, the Reader's Digest magazine serialization reached some 12 million additional readers.[10][11] In a New York Times Book Review, Hugh Trevor-Roper praised it as "a splendid work of scholarship, objective in method, sound in judgment, inescapable in its conclusions."[12] The book sold well in Britain, France, Italy,[13] and in West Germany, because of its international recognition, bolstered by German editorial attacks.[14]

Both its recognition by journalists as a great history book and its popular success surprised Shirer[15] and the publisher commissioned a first printing of merely 12,500 copies. More than fifteen years after the end of the Second World War, neither anticipated much popular interest in Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) or Nazi Germany (1933–45).

Criticism

Whereas nearly all American journalists praised the book, scholars were split. Some acknowledged Shirer's achievement but most condemned it.[9] The harshest criticism came from those who disagreed with the Sonderweg or "Luther to Hitler" thesis.

Klaus Epstein listed "four major failings": a crude understanding of 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.[15]

Elizabeth Wiskemann concluded in a review that the book was "not sufficiently scholarly nor sufficiently well written to satisfy more academic demands... It is too long and cumbersome... Mr Shirer, has, however compiled a manual... which will certainly prove useful."[16]

Forty years later, historian Richard J. Evans, author of The Third Reich Trilogy (2003 to 2008), conceded that Rise and Fall is a "readable general history of Nazi Germany" and that "there are good reasons for [its] success." But Shirer worked outside of the academic mainstream, Evans noted, and his account was not informed by the historical scholarship of the time (1960).[17]

In West Germany, the "Luther to Hitler" interpretation was almost universally rejected in favor of the view that Nazism was one instance of totalitarianism that arose in various countries. Gavriel Rosenfeld asserted in 1994 that Rise and Fall had been unanimously condemned, and considered dangerous to relations between America and West Germany, as it might inflame anti-German sentiments in the United States.[18]

Publication and adaptation

A film adaptation was broadcast by the U.S. ABC television network in 1968, one hour a night over three nights.

Please do not use {{Infobox television film}} directly. See the documentation for available templates.

The book has been reprinted many times (but not updated) since it was published in 1960. Current[when?] in-print editions are:

  • ISBN 0-671-72868-7 (Simon & Schuster, US, 1990 paperback)
  • ISBN 0-09-942176-3 (Arrow, UK, 1990 paperback)
  • Folio Society edition (2004 Hardback)

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

See also

Notes

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

References

  1. ^ a b "National Book Awards – 1961". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-02-20.
  2. ^ Evans 2004, p. xvi.
  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. ^ a b Rosenfeld 1994, p. 101.
  10. ^ Cedar Rapids Gazette, 9 October 1960, p. 47.
  11. ^ Rosenfeld 1994, pp. 100–01.
  12. ^ William L. Shirer (1990). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (3rd Edition ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 1146. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  13. ^ Shirer, p. 1145.
  14. ^ Rosenfeld 1994, p. 96.
  15. ^ a b Epstein 1961, p. 230.
  16. ^ Wiskemann 1961, pp. 234–35.
  17. ^ Evans 2004, pp. xvi–xvii.
  18. ^ Rosenfeld 1994, pp. 95–96, 98.
Citations
  • 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. Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors and Friends (2001) Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0-19-514826-6
  • Rosenfeld, Gavriel D. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 29, No. 1 (January 1994). "The Reception of William L. Shirer's the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich in the United States and West Germany, 1960–62."
  • Shanahan, William O. The American Historical Review, Vol. 68, No. 1. (October 1962).
  • Siemon Netto, Uwe. The Fabricated Luther: Refuting Nazi Connections and Other Modern Myths (2007) Concordia Publishing House. ISBN 0-7586-0855-1
  • Wiskemann, Elizabeth. International Affairs, Vol. 37, No. 2. (April 1961)

External links

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