William Shirer - Berlin Diary (1941)
Historical Diary – 600 pages
Historical Diary – 600 pages
my copy an 1987 edition hardback borrowed from Pete
- 5 nods out of 5 -
Hitler and Nazism have had countless books penned in interest over the past seventy years. They continue to engulf the public imagination, with many notable academic figures commenting on them down the years. Yet it is one of the earliest accounts of Nazism that continues to be a shining star, a heavyweight amongst a mass of mediocrity – William Shirer was one of the first, and he’ll certainly be in contention as one of the last words of this tumultuous time.
It is Shirer’s subsequent, more comprehensive history on Nazism – The Rise & Fall of Nazi Germany - that is the better known; however, Berlin Diary combines both the comprehensive analysis of the later work, whilst adding adrenaline like quality that propel the book to position of a page-turner thriller.
Beginning in January 1934, it details seven years in Shirer’s life as a foreign correspondent, initially for the newspapers and later more successfully in the budding radio medium. He is there when Hitler takes full power; when he rearms; when he takes Austria, then Czechoslovakia; when war is declared from the allies, and there when the bombs fall on Berlin all around him. The reader is placed in the heart of the action; something other histories lack due to the gap between the events that actually happened to the time when they are described. He is commenting whilst the world stands on that fine wedge between war and peace. And yet for a man who has not the benefit of hindsight, Shirer does a remarkable job at his perceptive analysis on just what the Nazis are plotting and Europe’s dark fate.
Just why are the pages dazzling aware and insightful? Perhaps it is due to his position as an outsider, his nationally being American. Whilst liberalism died in Europe and fascism reigned, the reader is given an impression of Shirer as Orwell’s Winston Smith, The Last Man in Europe (furthermore, there are countless similarities with Orwell’s Nineteen Eighteen-Four – the rationing, the propaganda… the Worm is convinced that Orwell must have owned a copy of the Diary).
There are a couple of interesting points on Shirer’s old fashioned stereotypical view of the German believing he is right, that the rest of the world is wrong. As the days pass he becomes all the more anti-German, telling of the German “blank stare” they give him when he brings up the reasons behind their decision to go to war. But, as always, Shirer raises the questions as to the Nazi pulling the wool over their eyes: ‘What happens to the inner fabric of a people when they are fed lies…daily?’ (p.331). It is a question historians have been asking ever since.
A diary entry dated 23 February 1940 has Shirer lamenting: ‘My birthday. Thought of being 36 now and nothing accomplished, and how fast the middle years fly’ (p.260). Nothing accomplished? No, Mr Shirer, you were very much mistaken. This book is an essential must for anyone interested specifically in the Second World War, and more generally on the traits of the human character.
- 5 nods out of 5 -
Hitler and Nazism have had countless books penned in interest over the past seventy years. They continue to engulf the public imagination, with many notable academic figures commenting on them down the years. Yet it is one of the earliest accounts of Nazism that continues to be a shining star, a heavyweight amongst a mass of mediocrity – William Shirer was one of the first, and he’ll certainly be in contention as one of the last words of this tumultuous time.
It is Shirer’s subsequent, more comprehensive history on Nazism – The Rise & Fall of Nazi Germany - that is the better known; however, Berlin Diary combines both the comprehensive analysis of the later work, whilst adding adrenaline like quality that propel the book to position of a page-turner thriller.
Beginning in January 1934, it details seven years in Shirer’s life as a foreign correspondent, initially for the newspapers and later more successfully in the budding radio medium. He is there when Hitler takes full power; when he rearms; when he takes Austria, then Czechoslovakia; when war is declared from the allies, and there when the bombs fall on Berlin all around him. The reader is placed in the heart of the action; something other histories lack due to the gap between the events that actually happened to the time when they are described. He is commenting whilst the world stands on that fine wedge between war and peace. And yet for a man who has not the benefit of hindsight, Shirer does a remarkable job at his perceptive analysis on just what the Nazis are plotting and Europe’s dark fate.
Just why are the pages dazzling aware and insightful? Perhaps it is due to his position as an outsider, his nationally being American. Whilst liberalism died in Europe and fascism reigned, the reader is given an impression of Shirer as Orwell’s Winston Smith, The Last Man in Europe (furthermore, there are countless similarities with Orwell’s Nineteen Eighteen-Four – the rationing, the propaganda… the Worm is convinced that Orwell must have owned a copy of the Diary).
There are a couple of interesting points on Shirer’s old fashioned stereotypical view of the German believing he is right, that the rest of the world is wrong. As the days pass he becomes all the more anti-German, telling of the German “blank stare” they give him when he brings up the reasons behind their decision to go to war. But, as always, Shirer raises the questions as to the Nazi pulling the wool over their eyes: ‘What happens to the inner fabric of a people when they are fed lies…daily?’ (p.331). It is a question historians have been asking ever since.
A diary entry dated 23 February 1940 has Shirer lamenting: ‘My birthday. Thought of being 36 now and nothing accomplished, and how fast the middle years fly’ (p.260). Nothing accomplished? No, Mr Shirer, you were very much mistaken. This book is an essential must for anyone interested specifically in the Second World War, and more generally on the traits of the human character.
