The Long Night: William L. Shirer And tThe Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich

by Steve Wick

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 oc

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, World War II

288 pages, Hardcover

First published August 2, 2011

Reviews

[judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're looking for an eyewitness account of Hitler's rise and the war, this is not your book. Go to Shirer's Berlin Diary or his classic Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. If you're fascinated by great journalism, Murrow's boys and the painful moral dilemmas of deciding what to report while the Gestapo looks over your shoulder, this is the book. Murrow put his life on the line reporting from the blitz but IMHO Shirer's gig in Berlin was much worse. He could see early on what Hitler's intentions were but how much of the story could he risk telling? Worse yet, even if he told, who really cared? In the pre-war days, the world-at-large was in denial about the depth of Hitler's evil. This included the American Jewish community who were slow to grasp what Hitler's hatred for the Jews would really mean. Meanwhile, as the first of Murrow's boys and recruited before radio broadcasts from the war zone even began, Shirer had a key role in the birth of broadcast journalism. A worthy book for those who care about the ethics of reporting.

[Mary Ronan Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Germany, from 1934 to 1940 was both the best place in the world for a reporter to be posted and the worse. There was so much going on: the Nazis were becoming more powerful and more violent, they were clearly remilitarizing, and they had begun systematically persecuting the Jews. One crisis after another was created by Hitler: occupation of the Rhineland, dismissal of the terms of the Versailles treaty, invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Anschluss, the Nuremberg Laws, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the invasion of Poland, the Blitzkrieg, the fall of France, the bombing of Berlin by the Allies.

William L Shirer was there during all of it, first as a print journalist for the International News Service and eventually as one of the first CBS radio news journalists, working with Edward R Murrow. He broadcast from Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Danzig, Compiegne – wherever news was being made. But fear of the Nazis was extensive and it was difficult to get people to tell him the truth of what was really going on. German censorship was extreme, with every word printed in US media being perused by the Nazis and stern warnings given when correspondents criticized Hitler or his government. Numerous journalists were thrown out of the country.

When Shirer began his historic radio broadcasts, the first news broadcasts sent live to the US, the censorship was worse. A censor went over every word Shirer spoke on the air and he was reduced to using a sarcastic tone, a pause, emphasis on a word, and other subtleties to attempt to convey the truth about what was happening in Europe to the American listening public. On occasion he refused to report what was clearly propaganda, such as the purported preparations in 1940 for an invasion of England. Troops and materiel were moving to the west but Shirer noted there were no boats, no naval vessels with which to transport men and equipment. He realized the Germans wanted the Allies to believe they were about to invade when to Shirer they obviously were not.

Difficult as his professional life was, Shirer’s personal life became one of worry and loneliness. He lived in Vienna with his wife, Tess, when they were first married but in the middle of the Anschluss she went into labor, Shirer was out of the city, she required a Caesarean, and their doctor, a Jew, disappeared. His wife became critically ill and required another surgery and only by moving her to a convent in the Vienna woods were they able to entice the doctor to return, at the risk of his life, to perfume it. Tess and the baby moved to Geneva and Shirer got away to visit them as often as he could, but that was not often enough. Eventually he arranged for them to travel across France to Spain and from there to Lisbon and on to America.

Steve Wick, who is a reporter himself, portrays these adventures and Shirer’s mental state – a combination of excitement, worry, depression, fear, and loneliness - using Shirer’s books and his diaries, which he was able to sneak out of the country when he finally left in December 1940 as the Germans were preparing a case accusing him of being a spy. Shirer went on to write his monumental book about Nazi Germany, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which was for many years the most popular and widely regarded (except among academic historians) history of the period in the US.

I borrowed this book from the library about 10:30 Monday and I finished it Wednesday mid-afternoon. It is a rich tale of the life of a reporter, writing from a viewpoint in the middle of world-shattering events, struggling to maintain ethical standards, and almost overwhelmed by the evil and destruction around him, but unable to report most of it to the free world.

2011 No 123

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is the fact that Shirer, though brave, was not fearless, that makes his time in Nazi Germany so amazing. Wick's, through heavy use of Shirer's diaries of his time in Berlin, makes the frightening climb of the Nazis to power vivid. You can feel what it must have been like to wait for the doorbell to ring and find a soldier standing ready to convey the order your deportation, to stand while the Nazi censors struck black lines through your stories, to worry that your writings--as carefully self-censored as you make them--may give a hint to the identity of your informants and lead to their arrest and possible death.

It is also clear what a struggle it was for journalists to maintain their integrity in the face of immense intimidation. In one important incident, Shirer refused to broadcast that the Nazis were preparing an imminent invasion of England despite strenuous insistence by the Nazis that he do so. Based on his own evaluation of the transportation needs such an invasion would require, along with his not seeing any preparation for it, he decides that the Nazis' pushiness on the matter can come only from a desire to instill fear in the British people and he refuses. Sadly, not all journalists did the same.

An admirable man and journalist who stood up for what he believed as best he could under circumstances that would have caused most people to give up entirely. He felt that whatever truthful information he could get out was more important than disobeying censors and being unable to serve as a witness at all. The importance of his later book--The Rise and Fall of the German Reich is testimony to the importance of Shirer as a witness.

[Robert Morrow · Rating 2 out of 5]

A tale of occasionally gripping scenes overwhelmed by too much repetition and filler material. Occasionally the writing seemed more geared towards high school students than adults, with simplistic retelling of well-known historical events adding little to the narrative. Generally, the second half of the book, dealing with Shirer's period in Berlin is more interesting than the first half, but the ending (the escape to America) is anti-climactic. Better to read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, probably the best popular history ever written.

[Zora · Rating 2 out of 5]

In no way is the tepid rating a reflection on Mr. Shirer, his life, his diaries, his work, or his heroism as a journalist in Nazi Germany. We are reminded, in excerpts from his diary and letters, that Shirer extemporaneous is a much better writer than Wick revised and edited.

Wick has some especially odd moments here. On page 79 he seems to not know that Spain is in Europe. (Really. I re-read the sentence three times, and that's what it says.) He refers to two instances of Shirer falling in love, once before he met his wife, and once at the end of his marriage and is clearly creeped out by what he finds in Shirer's diary, characterizing passages as over-emotional, adolescent, gushing and embarrassing. He might as well have penned "ewwwww!" This really tells us more about Mr. Wick, I think, than it does about Mr. Shirer (who, after all, did not ask this fellow to read the personal bits of the diary or editorialize about them.)

Until someone writes a terrific 800 page biography of Shirer, we'll have to make do with the this, I suppose, but I'm not at all thrilled and wouldn't recommend it. I would and do recommend Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, probably the most important political/historical book written in modern times.

[Kristall · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25⭐

The Long Night: William L. Shirer and the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Steve Wick was an interesting book but also slightly disappointing. It is essentially a biography of William L. Shirer's life rather than what the title implies. I expected the focus to be more on his most popular and well-known book and how he went about writing it. One chapter at the end is devoted to that, the rest is about Shirer's time as a foreign correspondent based in Europe.

I did find the book interesting but I suspect that is because I just finished reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. If I'd just picked it up without having read TRaFotTR first, I suspect it would have been difficult to stay engaged with it.

The pace is very slow and it took me longer to read than books of similar lengths. The research is largely based on Shirer's diaries and random notes he'd jot down throughout his life so I felt like I was hearing a lot of his story in his voice.

I did enjoy learning about Shirer's life and his values. However there was obvious bias and judgement from the author on some of Shirer's actions and choices he made which I thought was uncalled for.

All in all, I am glad I read it but there are definitely some issues with the organization and writing.

[Stephen Ditman · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 stars

[Dan Durning · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone interested in William Shirer’s life and times, he left little unrecorded in his published diaries and memoirs. His Berlin Diary published in 1941, was followed by a snarling sequel, End of a Berlin Diary (1947). His memoirs included the three volume Twentieth Century Journey: The Start, 1904-1930 (1976); The Nightmare Years, 1930-1940 (1984); and A Native’s Return, 1945-1988 (1990). Also, he wrote Midcentury Journey (1952) that covered the first fifty years of his life in summary form. His broadcasts from Berlin were published in a volume titled, This is Berlin: Reporting from Nazi Germany, 1938-1940 (1999).

Readers who do not want to wade through about 2,000 pages in Shirer's books can get a shorter version of his life in Steve Wick’s biography, The Long Night.

Wick’ book briefly summarizes Shirer’s years before he arrived in Berlin (1904 to 1933) and the high points of his years after leaving Berlin (1941 to 1993). Most of the book is devoted to the story of Shirer’s time reporting from Berlin (1934 through 1940, which some interruptions). Because this period of Shirer’s life is covered in great detail in his diaries and memoirs, Wick's book is based mostly on those accounts. He supplements those with his own external characterization of Shirer’s response to his work in Germany (anger, frustration, stress, exhaustion), raises questions about Shirer's behavior in the face of the mistreatment of Jews in Germany, and adds some additional information, particularly about Shirer’s attempt to help a Viennese photographer – a Jewish woman -- who sought his help to leave the city after the Anschluss.

Mainly, The Long Night is readable short version of Shirer’s experiences as a radio reporter in Nazi Germany written by an admiring journalist. It captures aspects of Shirer’s personality that emerge from his diaries, including his large ego and his integrity, which he fought to maintain in the face of tight censorship and attempts to manipulate his reporting. In this book, Shirer emerges as a admirable, but not very likable, reporter who did an extraordinary job in very difficult circumstances.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

In limning the journalistic life of William Shirer, who found his place in the sun while covering the darkness of Nazi Germany, my one-time colleague Steve Wick avers he's not a historian, but a journalist himself, and that in writing "The Long Night" he chiefly aspired to penning an adventure story. In this, he largely succeeds. "The Long Night: William L. Shirer and the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" is a welcome synthesis of Shirer's three career memoirs (as well as much other archival material) and provides the reader with a real sense of the times and terrors Shirer both endured and reported. It also reveals a very real man, whose sometimes aching foibles soften the edges of the nearly iconic figure who crafted the monolithic "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" (on which he labored for 10 years). If I have one quibble with "The Long Night," it's Wick's occasional reference to the experiences in Nazi Germany of German journalist and literature professor Victor Klemperer. After the first instance or two of these asides, I came to wonder whether the dual narratives of Shirer and Klemperer would somehow come together at some point. But the brief, intermittent allusions to Klemperer come to an abrupt end nearly 80 pages from the end of the book and do not return until the final paragraph of the author's notes. Still, this is a minor annoyance in an otherwise thoroughly enjoyable overview of one of the 20th century's more remarkable journalistic figures.

[KOMET · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a richly informative, well-fleshed out book about William L. Shirer's life as a journalist/radio correspondent in Nazi Germany between August 1934 and December 1940. The author also sheds light here on Shirer's overall career as a journalist, which began after his college graduation in 1925, when he travelled to Paris, where he managed to get a low level position with the Chicago Tribune. In reading this book, I learned a lot more about both Shirer the journalist and the man.

I highly recommend this book to anyone with both a love of history and an interest in learning about a journalist's struggle to find truth in a totalitarian country and share it with the wider world.

[Greg Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the most influential books in my life was Erich Fromm’s ‘Escape from Freedom’, in which he examines the question ‘why did so many ordinary Germans accept authoritarian government?’. The same question intrigued Shirer, who ‘saw the government’s lies as so over the top that he could not fathom how the German people could possibly accept them as truths’. Shirer agreed with Fromm. He saw the German people as ‘cows’: ‘They wanted to be led around by a strong leader who lied to them every time he opened his mouth’ (p.143). ‘…they have turned to an authoritarianism which releases them from the strain of individual decision’ (p.213). They wanted the decisions to be made for them. They wanted, in other words, to ‘Escape from Freedom’. There is merit in this view, though I think it is also simplistic.
I find the parallels with Trump’s America intriguing and disturbing. I wonder if Trump’s supporters understand how like these German ‘cows’ they are? As Hitler ranted at the Nuremberg rally in 1937, ‘The Jews are murdering Spain, the Jews are the criminal people, all crimes can be traced back to the Jews’. Substitute ‘Democrats’ for ‘Jews’, and this could be said in its entirety of one of Trump’s rallies. All lies, and yet ‘the people are so stupid that they believe everything’ (p.109). Goebbels understood that if you tell a lie often enough, it will become the truth. Trump also understands that.
I think it is part of the human psyche to yearn for a strong leader. And, as in Germany (where Hitler may never have come to power if it had not been for the weakness of the Weimar Government, capped by the chaos of the Depression), it is often anger and frustration with the ‘swamp’ of central government that causes people to ‘escape from freedom’. The irony is that American republicans, especially Trump supporters, in their obsession with tyranny and the dangers of government, think they are actually protecting freedom.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

It sticks out on almost any bookshelf. Like the cover, a white circle appears in the center of the jacket spine, the antithesis of the black that otherwise fills the space. In the midst of the circle is black again, but in the shape of the Nazi swastika. The title, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich , is in gold at the top. It is as if the cover symbolizes what is within, history viewed as a recounting of the rise and destruction of evil.

Considering it was nearly 1,300 pages long, the book was a significant popular accomplishment. Not only did it top the New York Times bestseller list and win the National Book Award, it was a selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. A worthy achievement for any historian. Yet the author, William L. Shirer, was not a historian. He was a reporter who provided firsthand coverage of Hitler's Germany and the onset of World War II from 1934 through 1940. Those six years are the focus of Steve Wick's new biography of Shirer, The Long Night: William L. Shirer and the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich .

Like his subject, Wick is a journalist, not an academic, a point he makes in an author's note. His goal "was to write more of an adventure story than a book of history." The Long Night meets the objective.

Wick traces Shirer's life and career from Coe College in Iowa to Europe and India and his work as a wire service, newspaper and radio correspondent until his departure from Berlin in December 1940. Throughout, Shirer was an inveterate diarist. The notes and journals he smuggled out of Nazi Germany when he left were the basis of Shirer's Berlin Diary , itself a bestseller in 1941. Wick relies on and quotes extensively from those notes and journals. He occasionally looks to other sources in attempting to give a more complete picture but perhaps not as often as one might like in fully setting the significant times and events in the Nazi rise to power and entry into war.

Although Wick writes in the straightforward prose one would expect from a journalist, he uses the original material to tell the story in a way that utilizes but does not abuse the concept of creative nonfiction. In addition to detailing Shirer's journey as a European correspondent, The Long Night presents some of the conflicts that confronted Shirer and other reporters as the Nazis increased their power. As the Nazis grew stronger, reporters struggled with balancing government censorship against the risk of expulsion. Is censored news better than no news about what was happening in Germany? Wick also points out the human level of some of the conflicts. How does a reporter balance the extent to which they use a source in the government or the Nazi party against the risk that contact will result in the source's arrest? Perhaps more crucially, should the Nazi government's treatment of the Jews require a journalist subject to censorship to become an advocate for them or at least against the Nazis?

Although it was his coverage of Nazi Germany that made Shirer famous, he actually set off for Europe in 1925 without a job. By luck, he was hired by the Chicago Tribune in Paris just as he was preparing to return to America. At the beginning, he only covered Europe, including Charles Lindbergh's landing in Paris after his solo flight across the Atlantic. Eventually, the job would take him to India to report on Gandhi's efforts for independence. He would also find his way into Afghanistan, where, according to Wick, he concluded the seemingly endless conflicts and wars left a "sinkhole not worth a drop of foreign blood."

In 1934, Shirer began work in Berlin as a correspondent for William Randolph Hearst's Universal News Service. The news service, however, was shut down in 1937. Again, luck played its hand as Shirer was contacted and hired by Edward R. Murrow, the head of CBS's European staff. Somewhat ironically, although he and Murrow would essentially pioneer foreign radio correspondents actually broadcasting news from the scene, that was not Shirer's main task when he started with CBS. Instead, he arranged and set up venues for non-news programs, such as musical performances. When Germany annexed Austria in 1938, though, he and Murrow headed up a round-up of European coverage, a format the CBS radio network would use for years.

As censorship increased, Shirer tried to use subtle references and intonations to convey more meaning to audiences with the language the censors would allow. Wick examines Shirer's true feelings toward the Nazis and the internal conflict -- and even depression -- the censorship produced. The Long Night also suggests this period could be the source of a theme of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich frequently criticized by academics. Shirer's perspective was that Hitler and Nazism arose because of the character of Germans and their society. Wick acknowledges that Shirer's feelings toward the German people hardened and became more cynical with time. "He saw them as cows. They wanted to be led around by a strong leader who lied to them every time he opened his mouth," Wick writes. "They did what they were told and did not debate moral issues. They never debated moral issues when self-interests were involved."

While that theory was debated and criticized by academics, The Long Night makes clear he was not a historian; he was a reporter whose later books allowed him to express what he could not when in Germany. Because Wick's intent was to write "about a journalist at work," he does not delve into those books or the validity of Shirer's ideas and themes. Rather, Shirer's life after leaving Berlin in 1940 is summarized in a 12 ½-page "Postscript." To that extent, those interested in Shirer will be disappointed and need to await a full biography. For now, Wick at least provides insight not only into the man but the formative period of his most notable work.

(Originally posted at A Progressive on the Prairie)

[Alan Schuetze · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readable and impossible to put down.

Anyone inspired by The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich will find this book fascinating and well worthwhile. I couldn't put it down. Steve Wick is a very engaging and accessible writer and his book is very readable and interesting .William L. Shored was a journalist showed fired from the Chicago Tribune for unspecified reasons as a young man and went on to become one of the most successful and important reporters and historians of
F the Twentieth Century. Work's book deals with how Shirer became CBS's most important correspondent in National Socialist Germany and his interactions and conflicts with Nazi censors. Wick describes Shirer's disgust at other American journalist's towing the Nazi propaganda lines, a strategy he called "going along to get along."
Wick also describes Shirer's personal life, including his marriage to Tess Shire r and the birth of their daughter Eileen.
Altogether, Wick's book is week researched, well written and worthwhile to anyone interested in the history of the Twentieth Century, particularly the Third Reich.

[David Mc · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Shirer’s story is so fascinating that the biography reads like a novel. Indeed, his years in Berlin were filled with suspense, mystery, and terror, as the Nazi powers increased their persecution of the Jews, as well as tightening their grip on the individual freedoms of regular citizens. Thus, as much as I wanted more information concerning Shirer’s informants, along with the backgrounds of the Jews that he helped, I realized that the famed journalist consciously left this information out of his notes to prevent the likelihood of these people being arrested and/or executed.

Unlike many of his colleagues and fellow Americans, Shirer had a pretty clear notion of how Hitler might ultimately impact Germany and the world, Unfortunately, in dealing with the real possibility that the Gestapo could arrest him as a “spy,” Shirer had to be very careful on what he reported. All in all, this was a fascinating book capturing the life of an influential journalist reporting from a dangerous place and time period in history.

[Arthur Fried · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Great Journalist

William L. Shirer was an American journalist who covered Nazi Germany as a foreign correspondent from 1934 through 1940. He was also, with his friend Edward R. Murrow, one of the inventors of broadcast journalism. Years after WW II he wrote the first comprehensive history of Nazi Germany, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. The author of this book, which focuses on Shirer’s years as a foreign correspondent in Berlin, describes how Shirer wrote and broadcast his stories, the pressures he faced from both German censors and American news executives, and how he and nearly all his fellow correspondents failed, through a lack of foresight and fear of censorship, to adequately cover the fate of the millions of European Jews who would soon perish in the Holocaust.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't quit this book because it isn't interesting. It is. The reason I quit is because I had read several of Mr. Shirer's books about his experiences in Berlin, France and Spain as well as his youth in the Midwest. Also The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. As I read this book, which is well-written, I thought of all the books I have on my list to read and realized that since I had already read about Mr. Shirer's life and what he wrote about, it didn't make sense to read this.

[Elizabeth B Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book

William L. Shirer is the authority on Nazism’s rise and fall, a very apt subject for our time. Steve Wick has written an excellent biography of Shirer, emphasizing Shirer’s doggedness and determination, personal sacrifice and courage in making sure the world knew what Nazism was really doing. This is a fine biography by Steve Wick.

[Khalidben-Cherqui · Rating 4 out of 5]

it was good as a read for some historical value but got very boring because of the main character worrying to much about his family and it just becomes that

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story behind the massive story.

[James Hutcheson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good historical account about events prior to/early WWll in Germany-story of William Shirer(who wrote -The rise and fall of the third reich)

[wally walter · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent account of life in Germany in the 1930,s

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to write a book about someone who's already written so many memoirs. This book had interesting moments, but if you've already read Shirer's Berlin Diary, this covers much of the same ground.

[Paul Fidalgo · Rating 4 out of 5]

From my blog Near Earth Object.

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.

[SeaBae · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tale of William Shirer's time in Berlin reporting on the rise of Nazi Germany is a fascinating one, as exciting as the best wartime suspense novel. Even though we know Shirer survives to write the landmark "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," author Steve Wick still manages to make the reader fear for Shirer's safety as he broadcasts from the midst of British aerial assaults on Berlin, flies on a plane with iced over wings, and travels to the war front to observe firsthand the Nazi blitzkrieg.

And aside from a narrative that reads like a novel, the reader receives many insights into life in Europe during the end of the Depression/beginning of World War II such as the food deprivations and the struggle to stay employed at a livable wage. Nor does the author shy from trying to examine why so many journalists, American and European alike and including Shirer, ignored Hitler's war on Jews in their reports home even though witnessing it firsthand.

The author does make clear just how frustrating reporting under the Nazi regime, with its insistence on triple censorship and its sudden expulsion of any correspondent whose views they don't like, was for Shirer, who refused to spout Nazi propaganda just to get a report on air. And the reader receives a fascinating look into the birth of modern broadcasting, as Shirer and his mentor Ed Murrow make history by reporting the events of World War II. Shirer even scoops Winston Churchill with his report on the surrender of the French to the Germans - when told about Shirer's report by Murrow, Churchill doubts it happened.

However, the book falters when it leaves Europe and World War II behind, or indeed tries to focus on Shirer the human being. Luckily, that only makes up about the last 1/4 of the book. Here, the author inserts himself too much into the story, musing on this or that about Shirer and his reasons, and the musings are neither all that insightful nor particularly well-written. Clunky best describes it. If the book had ended where it began - with Shirer's thrilling escape from 1940 Berlin - it would have been a much stronger literary endeavor.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up to read after listening to a lengthy NPR interview with the author, Steve Wick, a few months ago. As a moderate WWII history buff (you know, did my college thesis on WWII, love reading about the stuff, but have stopped short of dedicating my life to it), I enjoy this era. The book is part-autobiography and part history of the period from the mid-1920's in Germany through late 1940, when WWII was raging. It follows the life of William Shirer, the author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and his career as a journalist, his life in Europe and his groundbreaking work to keep broadcasting news of Hilter and the atrocities in Europe to America during the war. The book was well written and the tone and writing style reminded me of Erik Larsen, making Wick another author who turns history into fun reading. I was truly blown away by the life that Shirer led, his friendships and professional relationships that I was not aware of before reading this book -- he was a contemporary and good friend of Grant Wood, travelled with, met and interviewed Ghandi, and became one of the only embedded American journalists in Germany during the war. His friendship with Edward R. Murrow was interesting to learn of as well. If you are a history buff, a journalism buff, or a biography buff, I highly recommend this book. It was a pretty quick read (about 300 pages) but it definitely left me wanting to read Shirer's work in the future.

[ILoveBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Long Night is a very powerful nonfiction book. The plot concerns Hitler's rise to power and the destruction that ensued after. Shirer, the main character, was the only reporter who reported every brutal event. He was one of the few not to fall for Nazi propaganda while still remaining (for a little while) in Germany and among the soldiers and Nazi elite. The author has the ability to make the events appear as if they are occurring right when the reader is reading about them. The atmosphere and permeating fear and horror is tangible, as is the desperation.


Shirer is an admirable character to read about. He reported his findings accurately, much to the chagrin and impending threats by the Nazi party. He advocated early warnings about the true intentions of the Nazi party and he stayed for as long as possible in the heart of the chaos. The reader will grow close to Shirer while reading this novel and share his hopelessness and need for the truth to be known. Shirer and the reader both will feel increasingly disparaging towards powerful leaders and the people who should have listened and taken into consideration Shirer's reports. A history buff and the average nonfiction reader will devour this novel.

*I received a copy to review, this in no way altered my opinion of this novel

[Sandra Stiles · Rating 4 out of 5]

William L. Shirer was journalist who took chances many others wouldn’t to get the truth out. Most of this story took place in Berlin at the height of Hitler’s reign. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to not know who to trust, not know if you were going to get your information out or not. The stress alone knowing that you could be booted out of the country and denied access to what was really going on around you while fighting to stay alive from the bombings had to have been horrible. Even though most of his work was censored he tried to warn people about what Hitler and his men were really up to. He attended Nazi Party Rally’s and got a first hand look at what was coming. While reading about Shirer’s experiences I felt as if I had been transported back to a time long before I was even a thought and was living in Berlin watching event unfold. I admire people like Shirer who are willing to risk everything to get to the truth. It is by hearing watered down versions of the truth in the media today that we continue to make the same mistakes. Anyone who loves this time period or history in general will love this book. It is not an easy read but it is well worth it.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shirer certainly lived in interesting times. His first journalism assignment was at the rather unglamorous copy desk at the "Tribune." On the other hand, it was Paris and the time was the 1920s. His coworkers included James Thurber who brought him a copy of "The Great Gatsby" hot off the presses and then later brought over the author himself. Readings at Shakespeare and Company, long conversations in the cafes and walks through the streets of the city of lights filled Shirer's days there.
What a contrast the dark, terror-filled nights of Berlin in the 1930s made to those early days. Trying to tell the story of Hitler's Germany with three censors hovering and English bombs falling, he often despaired of the job he was trying to do. Working in broadcasting for CBS with London correspondent Edward R. Murrow put Shirer on the front lines of the war and history.
The accounts of Shirer's European career make this vivid book read like an adventure story. Sadly his life after the war was not so inspiring.

[Wesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting account of Shirer's years in Germany leading up to the outbreak of WWII. This book complements In The Garden Of The Beasts about Ambassador Dodd. It is still amazing to read about how Hitler carried of his rape of Europe while the major powers stood by and watched.
One interesting question raised by this author deals with the extent to which even liberal leaning reporters like Shirer failed to take issue with the Nazi war against the Jews in Germany as it was happening. One wonders what Shirer and others like him could, and should, have done in that situation. Perhaps they should have written and spoken out forcefully about what they knew was happening, e.g., the businesses, homes, livelihoods, and citizenship of German Jews being taken away from them with no recourse. Of course, had they done so, they almost certainly would have been forced to leave Germany. But maybe not being able to report from Germany at all would have been better than standing by while these atrocities were happening.
It is a hard question. And it is easy to point the finger of blame in hindsight.

[Pamela Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, gripping, a good introduction to Shirer and his journalistic efforts in Germany during the Third Reich. For me it brought out the moral issues associated with being willing to be the Nazi's dupe in reporting their propaganda in order to be allowed to stay behind the lines in Germany. It took courage and self-sacrifice to do so, but I'm not really sure it was the correct choice. In addition, I was struck by how Shirer always put his job ahead of the well being of his family - dashing about writing admittedly high profile stories while his wife's life was threatened after the birth of their child, allowing his wife and child to try to escape from Europe alone, etc.

I read this book as an incentive to pick up "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and later the Evans books on the Third Reich. It seems to have worked as I immediately pulled down Rise and began to read.