The German Resistance to Hitler is woefully mischaracterized
The characterization of the German Resistance to Hitler in Shirer's book is embarrassingly uninformed, sticking to the myth that it was little more than a military plot devised by ambitious officers who simply objected to Hitler's military strategy.
Anyone interested in the true story and/or in the non-military participants in the Resistance -- completely ignored by Shirer and other Anglo-American historians -- should read Peter Hoffmann's "The History of the German Resistance, 1933-1945."
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Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
Received as a gift. Very well written. Great detail and insights into Hitler and the horror of his thinking.
Monstrous entertainment with a capital M
The epic nature of the subject, incisive detail, and narrative flow of Shirer's 'History' graciously places it somewhere between Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings' and Thucydides 'History of the Peloponnesian War.' Despite biblical length this is riveting first-class entertainment (penned by a journalist) that with some bias and certain blind spots paints a monumentally fair yet horrific picture of the human condition. Don't kid yourself into thinking this was an aberration of history or the work of some alien evil race. It's definitely in the blood, man's endless predilection for atrocity, subjugation and total war. Gullibility too, even willfully. But as for the common guilt of all Germans, somehow deserving of 'moral bombing' (go to hell, Winston), I just don't buy it. Imagine trying to maintain an income, a domicile and safety for your family while you and your neighbors organize and launch what? Key strikes against your own government, the likes of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan? Hell, you can barely criticize a modern democracy without receiving death threats or being monitored by the secret services. Ultimately it's a matter of scale. Stalin lived longer and so happened to kill tens of millions more. What's exceptional about the Nazis is the systematization and hideous detailing. To know nothing of WWII and particularly the Third Reich is a most unfortunate and dangerous ignorance. This just happens to be an excellent general study and reference source, a perfect base for more nuanced, specialized, detailed analyses. Might consider the hardcover, though--you'll come back time and time again. It's an incredibly engaging read that will haunt you and fire up your intellect on multiple levels. Thankfully it's indexed, with footnotes--there's a fortune of explicit detailing and further source recommendations to be found there.
Long.....but Worth It
William Shirer provides a detailed book sure to fill the needs of any historian or person that is interested in this period of time. It is reflective and a masterful work. I would recommend it to any person who wants to see Adolf Hitler in depth, and this era in full light.
Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
There are few threads of thought to consider in this book. First there is a prevailing theme throughout the book represented by the German word lebensraum, meaning "more land." For the people of neighboring lands an onslaught of terror was felt. Hitler's original goal was always to conquer Russia and the Slavs as he despised Communism and the Jews that were driving the Russian state of mind as he believed it to be. This belief took root in him as a vagabond in Austria where he felt oppressed by Jewish merchants and businessmen. Secondly and ironically he always looked to the East and waged war with the West, presumably out of some poorly thought out strategy. While he held a vengeance towards France, he was willing to leave England and the West alone. Albeit his actions of bombing London for months on end contradicted even that of his many shallow convictions. Third was a theme that became a consistent irony was one where on the eve of every onslaught upon a neighboring country, leaders held out hope that "it would not happen". One could make an argument in defense of Poland and perhaps even France individually, but collectively the world leaders could not gain consensus on eminent threats or preventive action. They had to wait until the fox was in the hen house. Fourth, I am left aghast at Neville Chamberlain as he sold out the Austrians and the Czechs, but more so, the world leaders who through silence allowed this to happen. After closing the last page in this book I stand even more firmly in my view that this world of `East' or `West' ideologies owes a world of tribute and gratitude to Sir Winston Churchill. Finally, though the book incriminates Hitler, it is also about German people with Hitler as their representative and scapegoat of the servant German mind. They had eleven hundred years of practice through the first and second Reich's, and shallow convictions seemed to loom just below the surface of the German people of this time as well.
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