Reading an Old Classic in a New Era
Why everyone should revisit William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". Join us starting Jan 20, 2025, as we read through the classic history of the Nazi era.
It’s been 80 years since the Third Reich fell. That means a 20-year old adult at the end of the war would be 100 today. There just aren’t that many left who remember.
The Nazis have largely disappeared from living memory.
And yet they could never be more present. In countless movies, the Nazis are the bad guys. From insults on the playground to internet debates gone bad (Godwin’s Law, anyone?), Nazis are ever with us. Vladimir Putin says he invaded Ukraine to rid the country of Nazis. But the majority of the developed world considers Putin a Nazi in Russian garb.
Then, of course, there is the orange-haired man who soon will be moving back into the White House.
Many Americans thinks Mr. Trump either was or could be a Nazi—maybe not Hitler reincarnated but some some sort of fascist for the TV and social media era. But is he?
In many ways, it is a tired question. But then this time around, he is doing things we haven’t seen from an American president in a very long time. When was the last time an American president seriously considered territorial expansion?
If Trump does coerce Canada, Greenland, and Panama to join the United States, is that the same thing as what Hitler did in central Europe in the middle of last century? What are we supposed to make of all that?
Well…in this reading group we are not going to answer that question. By November 2016, we had already spoken enough about Mr. Trump to last until the last syllable of recorded time. Especially now, eight years later, after the 2024 election result, we need a moratorium of sorts.
What I’d like to do is go back and ask a different question: what actually happened in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s?
I would suggest that most Americans don’t really understand the history as well as they think they do. Myself included!
Growing up, I was always a bit skeptical of the kids who were really, really into the Nazis. I couldn’t help but wonder why they were so obsessed…
Since then, I’ve read a few histories (including Adam Tooze’s The Wages of Destruction, an economic history of the Nazi regime (which the author recently revisited in light of major criticism).
But am I an expert? No.
But, in a way, that makes me ideally placed to lead a reading group of a book that tells the story of Nazi Germany. Starting on January 20, 2025, we will be reading William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. And we we read, I’ll be discovering a few things along with you, even as I bring in other more specialized historians to weigh in and enrich our conversation.
I am a historian. I have a PhD in History from the University of Cambridge. My doctoral dissertation was about American journalists abroad like William L. Shirer, but my time period was a bit later: the Cold War. For most of my adult life, I lived outside the United States: in Morocco, Spain, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. I know what it is like to observe major events as an American in Europe.
Since graduation I have worked for DC non-profits at the intersection of history, journalism, and foreign policy. But I haven’t been able to teach, which I truly love and miss. So for me, this reading group a chance to guide some old friends (and hopefully some new ones) through a long but fascinating book on a very important period of history. We can have a lot of discussions about the present later, but first we need to understand the past.
Because of this background, several of my non-academic friends have asked me to weigh in on the “Did it Happen Here?” debate (or rather, now I guess, “Is it Happening Here?”). They want to know if the historical analogy is true or not. Or they want to know why their fellow Americans don’t understand the parallels.
In those conversations, I find that the best way to proceed is to come back to what actually happened in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. You can’t make the comparison with the present or talk about it intelligently unless you really know the details.
Then beyond the instrumental use for arguments about the past and the present, the story of the Nazi regime is legitimately fascinating. You don’t have to be a History Channel grandpa to see the drama and terror and tragedy. The war is well worth understanding in its own right. For many different reasons.
So that’s what we’re going to do: dive back into the nitty gritty details of the Third Reich.
Our guide will be William Shirer, an American journalist who covered the Nazi regime for CBS from its beginning up through the first year of World War II. After the war, he became a bit more of a historian, obsessively going through files from the Nazi regime captures by the Americans.
In 1960, the publication of his magnum opus was one of a series of events that brought attention back to the Nazi regime. (We forget now, but after the war, people wanted to move on and leave those difficult years in the past. In that sense, it’s a bit like Covid…) The book is long (1250 pages in my 50th anniversary edition), but, looked at a different way, it’s surprising that Shirer was able to condense all that happened between 1933 and 1945 into a single book.
To spread out the reading load, we’ll take our time. Starting on January 20, we will read two chapters a week for four months. I will write a post here once or twice a week and leave the comments open for responses from you. Maybe there will be other topical posts. It just depends.
And then, depending on interest and availability, we may have a Zoom discussion. Perhaps I’ll pull together some podcast episodes where I interview historians of Germany. I’m still fleshing out all the details. And I’m very much open to suggestions. Please reply in the comments with your thoughts and ideas.
In the meantime, subscribe to stay up to date on all the details!
And please get your hands on Shirer’s book in one form or another: buy it, check it out from your library, or get an audio version.
Digital copies
Physical copies
Your local bookstore
Simon and Schuster (publisher)
Audio books
Reading Schedule: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reach (William L. Shirer)
Jan 20-27: Foreward, Chapters 1 & 2
Jan 28-Feb 3: Chapters 3 & 4
Feb 4-10: Chapters 5 & 6
Feb 11-17: Chapters 7 & 8
Feb 18-24: Chapters 9 & 10
Feb 25-Mar 3: Chapters 11 & 12
Mar 4-10: Chapters 13 & 14
Mar 11-17: Chapters 15 & 16
Mar 18-24: Chapters 17 & 18
Mar 25-31: Chapters 19 & 20
Apr 1-7: Chapters 21 & 22
Apr 8-14: Chapters 23 & 24
Apr 15-21: Chapters 25 & 26
Apr 22-28: Chapters 27 & 28
Apr 29-May 5: Chapters 29 & 30
May 6-12: Chapter 31 and Afterword