Berlin Diary

You can feel the danger lurking behind every day as radio journalist Shirer watched Hitler build on one horror after another.

Reynolds writes in a way you can hear him, in a stye that echoed his broadcasts. Even after the declaration of war, “life here is still quite normal… the theatres and movies, all open and jammed.”

And this item when he went to the front: “At last will get a chance–maybe–to see how this German colossus has been doing it, walking through Belgium, Holland and now, Northern France, so fast.”

What I like about Shirer’s approach is that he… show more.

Another journalist dispatched to Europe in the 1930s, Shirer stayed until 1940 when, fearing arrest by the Gestapo, he packed his diaries from his tenure in Berlin and Vienna and fled. His account is full of shocking incidents of Nazi barbarity, inside information from off-the-record conversations, and, seemingly incongruously, tender scenes from his marriage to Austrian photographer Tess Stiberitz, as the young couple struggled to create an alternate realm of love and stability midst the horror and chaos. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is more famous, but can’t match the intimacy and poignancy of this one.… show more.

This book was a best seller in 1941 and is still popular today. William L. Shirer was Edward R. Murrow’s counterpart in Germany where he reported on the radio about the build-up of the Nazis from 1934 to 1940 and set the stage for World War 2. This riveting book is for those who love history and freedom.

This journalist’s eye-witness account of the rise of Hitler was published in June 1941 and became a best seller – within one year selling 600,000 copies. Shirer, a journalist based in Berlin, wrote first for William Hearst's wire service - Universal Services - and then worked as a radio correspondent for CBS. He kept a diary in which he recorded his thoughts, impressions, and analysis, expressing his moral outrage at what he witnessed of daily life in Germany as it descended into fascism. As he was present at many Nazi Party rallies and attended Hitler’s speeches he was able to… show more.