The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) is a 1,140-page history of Nazi Germany from its inception through its final days. As a newspaper and radio reporter, author William L. Shirer lived and worked in the Third Reich during the 1930s and early 1940s. Throughout the book, Shirer draws partly on his own first-hand observations and experiences. His main sources, however, are the records of the German Foreign Office, the armed forces, the Nazi Party, and the secret police. Near the end of World War II, the Allies captured hundreds of thousands of German government documents. Shirer uses these documents together with the diaries of high Nazi officials and other key actors to reconstruct the history of the Third Reich, in some cases hour-by-hour, at its most crucial moments. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich won the 1961 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Content Warning: The source material explores Nazi Germany’s history, referencing genocide, the Holocaust, racism and discrimination, war crimes, and suicide. The author further seems to display anti-gay bias at times.

Summary

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich opens with a chapter devoted primarily to Adolf Hitler’s origins and concludes with a brief epilogue on the

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