The Long Night: William L. Shirer and the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Steve Wick (PDF)

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The story of legendary American journalist William L. Shirer and how his first-hand reporting on the rise of the Nazis and on World War II brought the devastation alive for millions of AmericansWhen William L. Shirer started up the Berlin bureau of Edward R. Murrow’s CBS News in the 1930s, he quickly became the most trusted reporter in all of Europe. Shirer hit the streets to talk to both the everyman and the disenfranchised, yet he gained the trust of the Nazi elite and through these contacts obtained a unique perspective of the party’s rise to power.Unlike some of his esteemed colleagues, he did not fall for Nazi propaganda and warned early of the consequences if the Third Reich was not stopped. When the Germans swept into Austria in 1938 Shirer was the only American reporter in Vienna, and he broadcast an eyewitness account of the annexation. In 1940 he was embedded with the invading German army as it stormed into France and occupied Paris. The Nazis insisted that the armistice be reported through their channels, yet Shirer managed to circumvent the German censors and again provided the only live eyewitness account. His notoriety grew inside the Gestapo, who began to build a charge of espionage against him. His life at risk, Shirer had to escape from Berlin early in the war. When he returned in 1946 to cover the Nuremberg trials, Shirer had seen the full arc of the Nazi menace. It was that experience that inspired him to write The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich—the magisterial, definitive history of the most brutal ten years the modern world had known—which has sold millions of copies and has become a classic.Drawing on never-before-seen journals and letters from Shirer’s time in Germany, award-winning reporter Steve Wick brings to life the maverick journalist as he watched history unfold and first shared it with the world.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Readers of my blog may already be aware of my deep affection for the thousand-plus-page tome The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, journalist William Shirer’s invaluable 1960 history of Hitler and his Germany. It was with great delight, then, that I was made aware of a history of that history, Steve Wick’s The Long Night, telling the story of Shirer’s years covering the tumult in Europe, mostly from the eye of the storm itself, Berlin.Though I feel it is missing a crucial chapter, it is a stirring tale. As Wick himself notes, it reads as much more of an adventure tale than a formal history or biography. Shirer struggles daily for over a decade with Nazi censorship, separation from his wife and child, a lack of support from his employers back home, his deep disappointment with the German people, and his own hubris and failings.We learn a great deal about the mindset of the period, as Shirer was a tuned-in, worldly journalist who had come from extremely humble, rural beginnings. Of particular note to some of this blog’s readers is Shirer’s impression of the Scopes “Monkey Trial,” the event in American history that in many ways began the culture wars in which we struggle today:<< As Shirer saw it, the drama unfolding in Tennessee in anticipation of the upcoming trial was reason alone to take leave of his country. "I yearned for some place, if only for a few weeks, that was more civilized, where a man could drink a glass of wine or a stein of beer without breaking the law, where you could believe and say what you wanted to about religion or anything else without being put upon, where inanity had not become a way of life, and where a writer or an artist or a philosopher, or merely a dreamer, was considered just as good as, if not better than, the bustling businessman." >>Even then, the willfully ignorant mob was making the rest of civilization feel unwelcome, just as the Tea Party imbeciles do today. Indeed, even Shirer’s struggles with a supposed journalistic need for “balance” over a human being’s honest impression rings true today. And like today, honesty did not always win the day over bland neutrality:<< As for Hitler's speech proposing peace for Europe, Shirer knew it was a lie. He was disgusted with himself for not declaring it so flat out. But he knew he could not, nor could he find a German outside the government to say it, and the frustration ate at him. "The proposal is a pure fraud, and if I had any guts, or American journalism had any, I would have said so in my dispatch tonight," he wrote. "But I am not supposed to be `editorial.' " >>But as a fan of Shirer’s definitive work, I concluded my reading with a slight sting of disappointment. Wick omits from his tale the writing of Rise and Fall; the process of putting this all-important book together is almost totally absent. Wick himself tells us near the book’s end that to do so would mean a wholly separate volume. “A biographer will someday write the story of the enormous hurdles Shirer had to climb to sell the book,” demurs Wick, and one can’t help but wish that this hypothetical book already existed within the one we were already reading.What a herculean effort it must have been to pen such a book! Ten years of Shirer’s life was poured into it, and its influence will be felt for generations. Surely, this story can be told as well as the formative experiences in Europe that led to the book’s genesis. It is not Wick’s fault that this is missing (though having the words “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” in the subtitle does lead one on), but its absence is palpable and deflating.That said, the book as it is holds up, and it is a story that needed to be told. We learn so much about what it means to be a journalist, a pro-democracy American, a liberal, and a vulnerable human being caught in a volatile, insane world.

⭐William L. Shirer was an American journalist stationed in Europe in the 1930’s. This was a time of upheaval as Hitler was coming to power. Shirer wrote about this and also had a radio show direct from Germany. He saw it all but was always censored in what he could write about. Later in life he wrote “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” which was the true account of what he saw in Germany during all those years of being censored. This was a immediate best seller and put his name in the league with authors who have made a major contribution to the study of history.I enjoyed this biography and learned a lot about Hitler’s rise to power as well as the stresses and strains of being a lone American journalist to report on what was going on. He is to be admired for risking his life in order to stay in Germany and bring news to the American people. Yes, his life was indeed stressed. There were long periods of time he and his Austrian wife had to be separated. He also took risks just to be there and, thankfully, he pulled out in time.His life was one of ups and downs. His finances were often in trouble. Later, there were messy problems with his wife. But through it all he was a dedicated journalist who tried to bring accurate reporting to the American people. His work was impressive and will long life on. And I’m glad I read this book and learned about who he was and how he gifted humanity by writing his book.

⭐On reading this book one is left feeling that Shirer is a familiar acquaintance, that you know his aspirations, insecurities and fears. This is an achievement for Wick, a biographer who needs to rely on autobiographical work, diary entries, notes and of course Shirer’s historical writing including his magnum opus, all of which convey facts and events but limited understanding of the feelings of the subject. One can guess that sometimes the resource material was incomplete, for example when an event is mentioned but not followed through because it was nevertheless interesting. Of course, I may have been beguiled by the warmth and style of an experienced journalist, but the story of Shirer is all the more rich for the perspectives, such as his rural origins, his Austrian wife, his intolerance of deceit, his disgust at yes-men, that are offered by Wick.I was surprised that Wick emphasises in his Author’s Note that he is a journalist, not an academic, and that an academic historical perspective may have helped balance this book. I cannot think of any way that more academic analysis would greatly improve this narrative. Wick has brought a personal feel to one man’s journey through a turning point in history, and has shown why Shirer risked so much to be a part of it. The final meeting in Portugal between Shirer and Murrow is a wonderful insight into journalism and the kind of fraternity it espouses even today, and offers understated and poignant reflections. Shirer’s almost naïve vulnerability to McCarthyism could be considered a perverse measure of a good man, and perhaps the difficulties in his later personal life are manifestations of a still restless soul being drawn to towards those who succeeded in a field where he wished to, fiction writing. Wick’s account of what Shirer saw in the 1930s enable the reader to weigh up Shirer’s conclusions about where to attach guilt for the horror that seduced and overran Europe.

⭐This is an interesting biography of foreign correspondent William L. Shirer, author of

⭐The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

⭐and

⭐Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941

⭐. Although this book concentrates on the time Shirer spent in Berlin, it covers all his journalistic life. Shirer had an early fascination with journalism, following maps as a schoolboy during WWI and devouring newspapers. In 1925, when he was only twenty one, Shirer went to Paris, hoping to find work on a newspaper. During this time Paris was the centre of the literary world and he met extraordinary characters, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, James Joyce and Sylvia Beach. He spent time in Vienna and India and met his wife, Tess. It was a time of joy, upheaval and immense financial stress – but Europe was changing and Germany was making the changes. For a journalist, Berlin was the place where the story was happening. In 1934, Bill and Tess arrived in Berlin.Shirer wanted to report on the situation in Europe, but he was hindered by his employers, more interested in him arranging musical venues for radio programmes, and the German censors, who controlled what he was allowed to say. This book follows Shirer as he visits Paris after the Germans invaded, meets William Joyce, attempts to evade the censors and worries about his wife and new daughter Eileen. My only criticism of this informative and interesting book is that it concentrates so much on the Rise of the Third Reich that it neglects Shirer’s visit to Berlin after the war, giving it only a short mention. Considering Shirer was present at Neuremberg and that he knew many of those on trial, it seems a missed opportunity not to cover that period in greater detail. Indeed, much of Shirer’s life after the war is really glossed over – although his career, and famous falling out with Ed Murrow, is dealt with, however briefly. However, this is a really well written account of a great journalist, a man who had great integrity, who refused to be used by the Germans for their propaganda purposes and did his best to report what was happening to a world who often seemed to him not to care about the truth.

⭐Having read, Berlin diary and the nightmare Years by William Shirer and thouroughly enjoyed his first hand accounts of Nazi Germany. I found this biography of the man as much a thriller as any Ian Fleming novel. A very good read and companion to Shirer’s books.

⭐Rivetting..unknown facts conveyed with such brevity and clarity

⭐Une biographie tellement réussie que William L. Shirer lui-même aurait pu l’écrire ! Une écriture précise, rigoureuse, empathique et un sujet parfaitement maîtrisé donnent au final un récit bouleversant.

⭐

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