This Is Berlin: Reporting from Nazi Germany 1938-40

by William L. Shirer, John Keegan (Introduction), Inga Shirer Dean (Preface by)

William Shirer, the acclaimed journalist whose "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" quickly became, and still remains, the standard work on Nazi Germany, was a masterful chronicler of the events in Europe that led up to World War II. ""This is Berlin"" gathers together two-and-a-half years worth of his daily CBS radio broadcasts that described the menacing steps Germany took toward World War II, just as America and the world heard them. Here is a vivid, compelling, and urgent narrative, one of the great first-hand documents of the Second World War.
An introduction by noted historian John Keegan and a preface by Shirer's daughter, Inga Shirer Dean, put Shirer's life and work into context.
"It would be almost impossible to overstate the importance of William L. Shirer's broadcasts from Germany . . . Mr. Shirer's descriptions . . . read as well as they were heard 60 years ago." ("Dallas Morning News")
"Shirer's broadcasts . . . are models of eloquence and subterfuge . . . any reader will find it hard to put down." ("Publishers Weekly," starred review)
"His broadcasts . . . have an enduring freshness." ("Sunday Times")

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Journalism, War, World War II, Germany, Politics

478 pages, Paperback

First published November 16, 2014

About the author

William Lawrence Shirer was an American journalist and historian. He became known for his broadcasts on CBS from the German capital of Berlin through the first year of World War II.

Shirer first became famous through his account of those years in his Berlin Diary (published in 1941), but his greatest achievement was his 1960 book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, originally published by Simon & Schuster. This book of well over 1000 pages is still in print, and is a detailed examination of the Third Reich filled with historical information from German archives captured at the end of the war, along with impressions Shirer gained during his days as a correspondent in Berlin. Later, in 1969, his work The Collapse of the Third Republic drew on his experience spent living and working in France from 1925 to 1933. This work is filled with historical information about the Battle of France from the secret orders and reports of the French High Command and of the commanding generals of the field. Shirer also used the memoirs, journals, and diaries of the prominent British, Italian, Spanish, and French figures in government, Parliament, the Army, and diplomacy.

Reviews

[Patricia Roberts-Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most interesting parts are the broadcasts where he's describing the views of people he chats with--they accepted that encirclement was a problem, that Poland attacked first, that it was a war of self-defense, AND that Germany had a "right" to European hegemony. A really good read.

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Transcripts of radio broadcasts by an American journalist living in Berlin before and at the beginning of WW2. It really drew me in as events unfolded "real time."
It was also interesting to read between the lines, because everything he said was subject to Nazi censors.

[Leannekahn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book started out great, especially if you are ignorant of the details of the history of the times and want to get educated. It starts out very strong with a first-hand experience from an American in Berlin in 1938, being paid to report to Americans what is going on, but through the censorship and the nature of propaganda, it becomes a repetitive, boring account, admittedly so by Shirer in his writing. Even so, the first half of the book is worth reading, and it does inspire you to find more reading material about the actual events as they happened in Berlin.

[Dave Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect for a behind the scenes peek
I'm certainly not the first kid in the world who wondered: "What were they thinking?" What was going on inside Germany (to quote the Stones) as the blitzkrieg raged? This book pretty neatly answers that question, and a few others of a similar scope.

-So here's the deal. CBS radio had a guy in London (Edward R. Murrow) and a guy in Berlin: William L. Shirer. They were partners, compatriots, and coordinated whenever possible. They both had tough jobs but only one of them had to live with Nazis censorship, and under the watchful eye of the gestapo. (...although Edward R. Murrow claimed that he was under a great deal of censorship from the British)
William L. Shirer was one of a handful of foreign journalist issued a license or permit to report news from Berlin. Everything he said was edited before the broadcast, and was closely monitored by observers as he spoke at his microphone.
Never the less, he managed to maintain his independence and covered a lot of very important information, including the treatment of Czechs, Poles, and the mass deportation of the Jews.

-But lets get right to the spoiler. What did the average German think of the war?
The answer would seem: not much.
About as much as the average American thought about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was just an unpleasant duty that only they had the power to do and they hoped it would be over quickly and everyone come home safe. Also, it was all England's fault.
Seriously? Yes. This guy reports the people of Berlin didn't even celebrate when their boys took Paris. It was just a Tuesday to them and they had work, and shopping, and laundry to deal with.
That's me boiling it down a lot. There is more nuance here than I can add to a review but, if you ever wondered how the Nazi party justified their aggression to the nation, or how average people reacted (in so much as the Nazi propaganda wing would allow to be broadcast on the radio) this will go a long way to answering those questions. strangely the answer is both comforting and chilling depending on haw badly you need to see those people as aberrations of the human condition, of how adverse you are to seeing them here and now in your neighbors.

One more thing. While this book goes day by day and you can pick up a lot by context, there is very little explainer of what the average adult in 1939 was expected to know. A basic history background will really help you get though this when they expect you to get the significance of the versailles, the Maginot, and the sudeten. These were all life & death serious then and didn't need explaining to anyone. I had never heard of the Scapa Flow and had to google it.

[Alex Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shirer’s one of my favourite (along with Hemingway and perhaps one or two others) journalists, chroniclers of the early to mid 20th C and amateur historians. He’s always worth the read or listening to.

With our changing perceptions of what news is (fake and otherwise), new job descriptions for the journalist (amateur “citizen journalist”) and decentralisation of the processes of reporting (receiving bite-sized descriptions of current events with the advent of social media reportage, aka Twitter), it’s refreshing to be able to sample some old school originality, depth & talent in this particular area of endeavour.

These transcripts of the his radio reports from the field and bleeding edge are fine example of a bygone era that indicates just what potential a popular new medium is capable of (at that time it was radio). Mix this new medium in with courage, intelligence, hard and daring work, competence, objectivity, relative balance, eloquence, integrity, along with a keen an eye for the dramatic and you can get an idea of how much of what is available to us today falls short of the mark.

[James Crawford · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's one thing to read a book written by people who were not in Germany at the time leading up to WWII and quite another thing to read a book written by someone who was actually there and was a reporter, trying to keep up on just what was going on.

This is the latter type of book. The author was not only a reporter stationed in Berline but he even got to meet a lot of the Nazi leaders. He had to keep a careful balance of just what he wrote, though, since his articles were checked out by the Nazis first. He notes his phone was bugged, his room could be searched at any time and there were always Gestapo informers around. There was also major censorhip going on.

He points out that many people actually supported what Hitler was doing early on. He discusses what seemed to be a major theme of the Nazis, that they had to 'protect Germany' from others. They always wanted room to expand and wanted to take over areas where the population was German but part of a different country.



It goes into detail about the various things the Nazi government was up to and how the rest of the world reacted, including Britain's policy of appeasement. It goes into the daily lives of the people and how they were exposed to the Nazi propaganda. It goes into the German attacks on Poland and other countries and how he eventually left Berlin.

Very informative book.

[Rose Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant WWII coverage, circa 1939-1049, written and read aloud from the perspective of an American broadcaster stationed in Berlin, William Shirer's nightly broadcasts, as revived in this audio book, are riveting on so many levels. 21 hours in length, but worth every minute, especially for students of journalism and 20th Century History!

[Roxann Brennfoerder]

Another "This is Berlin"

I love the integrity oF these old broadcast journalists. He could tell when they were lying to him and he implied it in his broadcast, unlike the journalists today shockingly agree with and accept the line of left-wing politicians.

[Neal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was surprisingly good. Interesting to hear what was publicly coming out of Germany at the time. Things like rationing was interesting to hear.

[Coleman · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting to see how the reports got increasingly censored. For a primary source this is fairly fast-paced and easy to read. It is written from the perspective a seasoned journalist so that always helps.

It definitely got repetitive, but I blame it more on the Nazi censors than I do Shirer.

Definitely worth the read and is an invaluable look into the early stage of, as Shirer would say, World War Number Two.

[Mike Lanski]

Pretty straightforward; the daily recordings from Mr. Shirer in Berlin up until the end of 1940, when he went back home.

[Troy Swanston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic historical account which I've found hard to top.