The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer, narrated by Grover Gardner | 1960 | Simon & Schuster | Audiobook $40

Hitler boasted that The Third Reich would last a thousand years. It lasted only 12. But those 12 years contained some of the most catastrophic events Western civilization has ever known.

The famed foreign correspondent and historian William L. Shirer, who had watched and reported on the Nazis since 1925, spent five and a half years sifting through this massive documentation. The result is a monumental study that has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of one of the most frightening chapters in the history of mankind.

I listened to this one on audio, courtesy of one of my public libraries and the Overdrive app. I had to borrow it 4 times in a row — thankfully there was no wait list. It’s a brick of a book, physically, and the intimidating 50-something-hour playing time is probably the main factor in me not having to give it up to another borrower.

It’s not the easiest book to get through, and not just because of the length. I mean… it’s about Nazis. It’s about psychopathy, and cowardliness, and violence, and the absurdity of all that coming together in the real world in a way that sounds like it could only happen in a dystopian fantasy land à la Game of Thrones. (Albeit without the actual White Walkers.) But what made it even harder to get through this book was the feeling that it actually wasn’t all so absurd that it couldn’t happen again.

It’s hard to describe the cognitive dissonance I felt when I had to take a break from a particularly depressing description of Kristallnacht, so I switched to NPR – only to find myself listening to a report on the Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting.

It would be nice to imagine that Nazis are a thing of the past or of old adventure stories. It would be nice to imagine that violent, racist conspiracy theorists are rare and mostly locked up in prison already. It would be nice to imagine that nationalism is really just another kind of patriotism.

But we don’t live in a fantasy land. Nazis are not just villains in Indiana Jones and Captain America movies. Domestic terrorists continue to wreak havoc. And blockhead political leaders continue to accept the support of nationalist groups or even identify as nationalist themselves. (Maybe actual White Walkers are not too far off, after all.)

As an aside, I do think this was overall a really well-written and well-researched book, but I think it’s worth mentioning that it has not aged perfectly; there are several derogatory comments about homosexuality, particularly referring to it as a sexual perversion typical of Nazis, lumping it in with other moral/behavioral abnormalities. So, just fair warning to anyone else thinking of reading this book – it is still a product of its time.

Links:

• “William L. Shirer on Nazi Germany” recording from WNYC
• “Revisiting ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'” at Smithsonian Magazine
• National Book Award, Nonfiction, 1961 Winner

Publication information: Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1960. Audiobook.
Source: Public library, via Overdrive.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.