BERLIN DIARY: JOURNAL OF A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, William Shirer 1st / 1st, 1941

  BERLIN DIARY: THE JOURNAL OF A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT by William Shirer — First Edition, 1941

 Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York (1941)

BERLIN DIARY: THE JOURNAL OF A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT by William Shirer (author of "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"), in overall excellent condition. First edition from 1941. 605 pages with Index. The boards and binding are solid and tight. The pages are crisp and clean, save for previous owner's signature on first blank page and slight natural toning to the inside front board. Please see below for more information on Shirer's accomplished careers.

Description and Biography of William Shirer

William Shirer (February 23, 1904 – December 28, 1993) was an American journalist and war correspondent. He wrote "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," a history of Nazi Germany that has been read by many and cited in scholarly works for more than 50 years. Originally a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the International News Service, Shirer was the first reporter hired by Edward R. Murrow for what would become a CBS radio team of journalists known as "Murrow's Boys." He became known for his broadcasts from Berlin, from the rise of the Nazi dictatorship through the first year of World War II (1940). With Murrow, he organized the first broadcast world news roundup, a format still followed by news broadcasts.

Shirer wrote more than a dozen books besides "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," including Berlin Diary (published in 1941); War Correspondent in Nazi Germany. When war broke out on the Western Front in 1940, Shirer moved forward with the German troops, reporting firsthand on the German "Blitzkrieg." Shirer reported on the invasion of Denmark and Norway in April from Berlin and then on the invasion of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, and France in May. As German armies closed in on Paris, he traveled to France with the German forces.

However, as the war continued and as Britain began to bomb German cities, including Berlin, Nazi censorship became more onerous to Shirer and his colleagues. In contrast to Murrow's live broadcasts of German bombing of London in the Blitz, foreign correspondents in Germany were not allowed to report British air raids on German cities. They were not permitted to cast doubt on statements by the Propaganda Ministry and Military High Command. Reporters were discouraged by the Propaganda Ministry from reporting news or from using terms like Nazi that might "create an unfavorable impression." Shirer resorted to subtler ways until the censors caught on.

As the summer of 1940 progressed, the Nazi government pressed Shirer to broadcast official accounts that he knew were incomplete or false. As his frustration grew, he wrote to bosses in New York that tightening censorship was undermining his ability to report objectively and mused that he had outlived his usefulness in Berlin. Shirer was subsequently tipped off that the Gestapo was building an espionage case against him, which carried the death penalty. Shirer began making arrangements to leave Germany, which he did in December 1940.

Shirer smuggled his diaries and notes out of Germany and used them for his Berlin Diary, a firsthand, day-by-day account of events inside the Third Reich during five years of peace and one year of war. It was published in 1941. Historians comparing the original manuscript with the published text discovered that Shirer made many changes, such as covering up his favorable early impressions of Hitler. Much of the text about the pre-1934 to 1938 period was first written long after the war began.