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4.29 AVERAGE
4.29 AVERAGE
dark
informative
tense
medium-paced
Can be a really tough read at times. But it’s incredible insight into the mindset, the process, and the failure. You can’t help but celebrate the downfall, something to look forward to in an otherwise cruel setting.
This is an incredibly long book with lots of info. I probably will be rereading it to get more information in the future because there was so much to absorb. I am not familiar with Germany's geography, ideologies Shirer mentioned, and people. I did a lot of googling to find out what they were as he mentioned them, but I missed so many that I'm sure another read will help.
I do like how he separated everything in a chronological order, yet he also talks about each theme in each chapter. One chapter is for Hitler's upbringing, one about the US, and another about the Russian and Germanic side of the war and why Hitler eventually turned against Russia. Since I am so used to only hearing about how the war went for the US from history class, I didn't realize there was a lot more to it, how Hitler tried to befriend Stalin, but eventually attacked him out of nowhere for his mere ideology: Stalin was a communist and Hitler hated communists.
Not only that, but Hitler's relationship with Mussolini was interesting, and the difference between the two was pretty stark. Mussolini didn't have high ambitions like Hitler, but eventually he became Hitler's lapdog because he kept going on with Hitler's plans. One detail that surprised me was after Hitler saved Mussolini, Mussolini was completely dejected and had no more will to fight. Hitler was disillusioned with this view of his friend.
I also found it interesting how the author wrote about how Nazism affected some specific US people. He mentioned McCarthy trying to make jail easier for Nazis (1422), and Charles Lindbergh thinking Nazi's were superior, would defeat the British, and went back home to the newly formed America First committee to spread his ideas (1085). Roosevelt branded Lindbergh as a defeatist and an appeaser.
One thing I had heard and confirmed by reading this book is that Hitler attempted a coup in the democratic Germany before he came to power. Five years wasn't enough because he came out with a completely different plan to overtake Germany. I am still confused how he did his politicking into the top seat of power, so I need to review that. But I do think we need to take coups seriously.
Another thing I couldn't help but notice is, despite Hitler's madness and lust for being a conquerer, he was a rambler. The book mentioned several times that whenever he went to meet with everyone, he would just talk and talk and talk. Even towards the end, he would talk, but with more feral madness.
This book was really interesting. Long, but interesting and educational.
UPDATE (7/6/21): I just saw that a quote I liked on Goodreads and is highly quoted everywhere is "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," by Friedrich Nietzsche. This book noted how Hitler adored Nietzsche, falsely appropriating his philosophical teachings (they were difficult to read and comprehend) to pioneer his own Nazi fantasies of antisemitism (Nietzsche hated antisemitism) and the superiority of Aryans. I did my own research when it mentioned this in the book. Apparently after Nietzsche died, his sister became in charge of his estate. She couldn't understand his writings, so someone falsely told her what they were. She was an antisemite and falsely marketed her brother's work as what Hitler used for his goals.
I wonder what people would think if they made that connection between that quote and how the author was used. Kind of morbid.
I do like how he separated everything in a chronological order, yet he also talks about each theme in each chapter. One chapter is for Hitler's upbringing, one about the US, and another about the Russian and Germanic side of the war and why Hitler eventually turned against Russia. Since I am so used to only hearing about how the war went for the US from history class, I didn't realize there was a lot more to it, how Hitler tried to befriend Stalin, but eventually attacked him out of nowhere for his mere ideology: Stalin was a communist and Hitler hated communists.
Not only that, but Hitler's relationship with Mussolini was interesting, and the difference between the two was pretty stark. Mussolini didn't have high ambitions like Hitler, but eventually he became Hitler's lapdog because he kept going on with Hitler's plans. One detail that surprised me was after Hitler saved Mussolini, Mussolini was completely dejected and had no more will to fight. Hitler was disillusioned with this view of his friend.
I also found it interesting how the author wrote about how Nazism affected some specific US people. He mentioned McCarthy trying to make jail easier for Nazis (1422), and Charles Lindbergh thinking Nazi's were superior, would defeat the British, and went back home to the newly formed America First committee to spread his ideas (1085). Roosevelt branded Lindbergh as a defeatist and an appeaser.
One thing I had heard and confirmed by reading this book is that Hitler attempted a coup in the democratic Germany before he came to power. Five years wasn't enough because he came out with a completely different plan to overtake Germany. I am still confused how he did his politicking into the top seat of power, so I need to review that. But I do think we need to take coups seriously.
Another thing I couldn't help but notice is, despite Hitler's madness and lust for being a conquerer, he was a rambler. The book mentioned several times that whenever he went to meet with everyone, he would just talk and talk and talk. Even towards the end, he would talk, but with more feral madness.
This book was really interesting. Long, but interesting and educational.
UPDATE (7/6/21): I just saw that a quote I liked on Goodreads and is highly quoted everywhere is "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," by Friedrich Nietzsche. This book noted how Hitler adored Nietzsche, falsely appropriating his philosophical teachings (they were difficult to read and comprehend) to pioneer his own Nazi fantasies of antisemitism (Nietzsche hated antisemitism) and the superiority of Aryans. I did my own research when it mentioned this in the book. Apparently after Nietzsche died, his sister became in charge of his estate. She couldn't understand his writings, so someone falsely told her what they were. She was an antisemite and falsely marketed her brother's work as what Hitler used for his goals.
I wonder what people would think if they made that connection between that quote and how the author was used. Kind of morbid.
Finally finished this behemoth of a book! Highly recommend to anyone looking for a challenging but fascinating history book to read.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Takes you through the Nazi regime in Germany and how the people and subsequent world dealt with Adolf Hitler. There were a great number of times where someone could have stopped him, but he was routinely rewarded with cowardice and negligence on the part of Britain, France, and Russia. It was beyond frustrating to read about Prime Minister Chamberlain and how often he would concede to Hitler. He was the villian of the early parts of the book in my mind by standing to the side and doing nothing while Hitler was allowed to do whatever he wished with little guardrails from any sort of power in the area. The author had a clear bias against the Russians and communism as a whole which while maybe fair it was extremely strange and annoying to hear him blame the Russians in most scenarios or conflicts they were involved with while giving the British and French a pass. Obviously prior to the Russians allying with the Nazis LOL. Tho sometimes during it was that alliance I was still saying cmon man to the author. Other negatives include this mans insistence that we know about every single plot about assassinating Hitler no matter how effective or how little the fallout/consequences. It was insane the amount of times I read about a failed plot or a get together of generals saying "We gotta stop this guy" then it would lead to nothing. For what reason man pls explain. Yeah otherwise it was an enthralling read from the beginning going through his origins and rise to power into WW2 and how the Nazis genuinely had a shot to do better then the collapse of the regime. Very insightful into probably (barring the US) the most infamous fascist regime in history and how such a government can rise out of hate for your fellow man at any given moment.
This book was easily one of the best history books I’ve ever read. It was also way more haunting than I thought possible, even given the subject. I chose to read this because I wanted to see if I could understand how such sadistic evil could have ever occurred. Although I still don’t think I’ll ever truly understand (and I probably don’t want to) the author does an excellent job of providing thorough, well researched and personal details in a way that keeps you reading in the edge of your seat.
challenging
dark
informative
tense
slow-paced
It's taken me a while to write this review because I haven't been able to find the right wording to talk about this book. It was certainly an experience unlike anything I've ever done. This is the longest book I've ever read, and I made the decision to read this so out of the blue that I didn't give myself time to rethink my decision, and so I just plunged in headfirst, not looking back. I put myself on a strict reading regiment, where I forced myself to read a chapter a day, and surprisingly I did fairly well. I managed to get the book done in only a month, and I never stopped reading long enough to feel burnt out over this book. Under any other circumstances I would have never read this, but here I am now, writing this review two months later, to proudly show off my accomplishment.
I wasn't expecting myself to enjoy this book as much as I did, but I was pleasantly surprised. I wouldn't say I liked this book in the way that I like other books that I've rated five stars, but I certainly deserves that rating as much as the rest. It is clear that Shirer worked incredibly hard to do research for and write this book, and the effort that was put into this was obvious to me. It was long, it was dense, but it was also incredibly rich, layered, and detailed in ways that I feel other nonfiction books could really benefit from. I've read plenty of books about WWII, both fiction, and nonfiction, but this book chose to write about a specific topic that I feel like most authors and readers try to avoid: The Nazis. I don't blame people for choosing not to read about them, after all, they did incredibly vile things and they hurt millions of people all across the globe. Hearing about how they did that was really hard for me, especially seeing how there were so many points in the book where Shirer pointed out how the Nazis were at a point where they could have been easily ended. It's a topic that must have been incredibly hard for Shirer to discuss, but he handled it extremely well.
I also want to briefly talk about how Shirer having personally experienced the wrath of the Third Reich while in Germany gave this book an extra layer that you can't get from many other places. He did mention in the introduction how ambitious it was to write a book about the book so soon after the Third Reich had fallen, but I thought it was a great decision on his part. Seeing how most authors who have written about Adolf Hitler and WWII were not alive at the time, it was really fascinating to read a book written by a fan who could talk about his own personal experiences from the time. It gave merit to Shirer, and it made me trust him and his research much more. I thought his personal add-ins made the book much stronger and more interesting.
I will say that there were a few section of the book that droned on a bit and I found kind of boring, but I expected that from a book like this. Pretty much any section that exclusively talked about politics was a difficult for me to read, it just felt incredibly overdetailed and complicated to the point where I could not set things straight. I also got confused with all the names in the book almost immediately. With the exception of a couple incredibly famous/infamous people, most of the names I forgot once I had learned them, and pretty much every other person besides Hitler merged together into one person. I was able to separate them more once I got to the end of the book, but it take a long time before I was able to remotely tell people apart. Skipping ahead a bit, I did also find that I felt that the book started to drag a bunch at the 2/3 mark, but that might be because I was starting to get agitated to finish the book because I had been working on it for so long. But no matter, what the reason was, the parts that slowed me down didn't affect me enough to really be bothered about it. Sure some parts were slower than others, but at the end of the day I learned so much from this book that I can't really complain about anything.
All in all, this was an incredibly rich and fascinating book, and I will not stop bragging to people over the fact that I have read this. Once I read a couple of other books this length I will become Thanos, except I have massive books instead of infinity stones. It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get to this point, and I do not regret it in the slightest. It was a wonderful experience reading this, and now I feel like I am the coolest person in the whole world for having done so. I probably won't read this book for another 50 years at the earliest, but I will always give positive praise to Shirer and to his writing.
I wasn't expecting myself to enjoy this book as much as I did, but I was pleasantly surprised. I wouldn't say I liked this book in the way that I like other books that I've rated five stars, but I certainly deserves that rating as much as the rest. It is clear that Shirer worked incredibly hard to do research for and write this book, and the effort that was put into this was obvious to me. It was long, it was dense, but it was also incredibly rich, layered, and detailed in ways that I feel other nonfiction books could really benefit from. I've read plenty of books about WWII, both fiction, and nonfiction, but this book chose to write about a specific topic that I feel like most authors and readers try to avoid: The Nazis. I don't blame people for choosing not to read about them, after all, they did incredibly vile things and they hurt millions of people all across the globe. Hearing about how they did that was really hard for me, especially seeing how there were so many points in the book where Shirer pointed out how the Nazis were at a point where they could have been easily ended. It's a topic that must have been incredibly hard for Shirer to discuss, but he handled it extremely well.
I also want to briefly talk about how Shirer having personally experienced the wrath of the Third Reich while in Germany gave this book an extra layer that you can't get from many other places. He did mention in the introduction how ambitious it was to write a book about the book so soon after the Third Reich had fallen, but I thought it was a great decision on his part. Seeing how most authors who have written about Adolf Hitler and WWII were not alive at the time, it was really fascinating to read a book written by a fan who could talk about his own personal experiences from the time. It gave merit to Shirer, and it made me trust him and his research much more. I thought his personal add-ins made the book much stronger and more interesting.
I will say that there were a few section of the book that droned on a bit and I found kind of boring, but I expected that from a book like this. Pretty much any section that exclusively talked about politics was a difficult for me to read, it just felt incredibly overdetailed and complicated to the point where I could not set things straight. I also got confused with all the names in the book almost immediately. With the exception of a couple incredibly famous/infamous people, most of the names I forgot once I had learned them, and pretty much every other person besides Hitler merged together into one person. I was able to separate them more once I got to the end of the book, but it take a long time before I was able to remotely tell people apart. Skipping ahead a bit, I did also find that I felt that the book started to drag a bunch at the 2/3 mark, but that might be because I was starting to get agitated to finish the book because I had been working on it for so long. But no matter, what the reason was, the parts that slowed me down didn't affect me enough to really be bothered about it. Sure some parts were slower than others, but at the end of the day I learned so much from this book that I can't really complain about anything.
All in all, this was an incredibly rich and fascinating book, and I will not stop bragging to people over the fact that I have read this. Once I read a couple of other books this length I will become Thanos, except I have massive books instead of infinity stones. It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get to this point, and I do not regret it in the slightest. It was a wonderful experience reading this, and now I feel like I am the coolest person in the whole world for having done so. I probably won't read this book for another 50 years at the earliest, but I will always give positive praise to Shirer and to his writing.
informative
slow-paced
challenging
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
Exhaustive and exhausting.
[prior review didn't save...]
Incredible and authoritative overview of this critical topic. One of the best history books I've ever "read" and I plan to buy the physical copy for a re-read when the time is right. Shirer's ability to use himself as a primary source sets this book apart and is something that later histories can't touch; he was in the country during the entire period and kept a detailed journal, as well as being able to draw on his own journalistic dispatches and other writings. I was struck an alarming number of times at how relevant the story of the rise of the Nazi party is given the meteoric rise of right-wing fascism and populism in the modern day. A small vanguard group of disaffected freaks, deviants, avaricious public figures and marginal but opportunistic politicians (sound familiar?) are able to accrue power by hook or by crook, ultimately managing to capture a state apparatus that is too sclerotic and disorganized to recognize the danger and organize to defeat it (SOUND FAMILIAR?), all the while capturing an ever-increasing share of public support by promising a restoration of past glory and a rectification of economic displacement (I don't think I need to keep editorializing).
Incredible and authoritative overview of this critical topic. One of the best history books I've ever "read" and I plan to buy the physical copy for a re-read when the time is right. Shirer's ability to use himself as a primary source sets this book apart and is something that later histories can't touch; he was in the country during the entire period and kept a detailed journal, as well as being able to draw on his own journalistic dispatches and other writings. I was struck an alarming number of times at how relevant the story of the rise of the Nazi party is given the meteoric rise of right-wing fascism and populism in the modern day. A small vanguard group of disaffected freaks, deviants, avaricious public figures and marginal but opportunistic politicians (sound familiar?) are able to accrue power by hook or by crook, ultimately managing to capture a state apparatus that is too sclerotic and disorganized to recognize the danger and organize to defeat it (SOUND FAMILIAR?), all the while capturing an ever-increasing share of public support by promising a restoration of past glory and a rectification of economic displacement (I don't think I need to keep editorializing).