The author of the international bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers a personal account of life in Nazi Germany at the start of WWII. By the late 1930s, Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Nazi Party, had consolidated power in Germany and was leading the world into war. A young foreign correspondent was on hand to bear witness. More than two decades prior to the publication of his acclaimed history, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer was a journalist stationed in Berlin. During his years in the Nazi capital, he kept a daily personal diary, scrupulously recording everything he heard and saw before being forced to flee the country in 1940. Berlin Diary is Shirer’s first-hand account of the momentous events that shook the world in the mid-twentieth century, from the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia to the fall of Poland and France. A remarkable personal memoir of an extraordinary time, it chronicles the author’s thoughts and experiences while living in the shadow of the Nazi beast. Shirer recalls the surreal spectacles of the Nuremberg rallies, the terror of the late-night bombing raids, and his encounters with members of the German high command while he was risking his life to report to the world on the atrocities of a genocidal regime. At once powerful, engrossing, and edifying, William L. Shirer’s Berlin Diary is an essential historical record that illuminates one of the darkest periods in human civilization.

With shocking and vivid detail, the journal of a woman living through the Russian occupation of Berlin in 1945 tells of the shameful indignities to which women in a conquered city are always subject and describes the common experience of millions.

William Shirer (1904-1993), a star foreign correspondent with the Chicago Tribune in the 1920s and ’30s, was a prominent member of what one contemporary observer described as an extraordinary band of American journalists, "some with the Midwest hayseed still in their hair," who gave their North American audiences a visceral sense of how Europe was spiralling into chaos and war. In 1937, Shirer left print journalism and became the first of the now legendary "Murrow boys," working as an on-air partner to the iconic CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow. With Shirer reporting from inside Nazi Germany and Murrow from blitz-ravaged London, the pair built CBS’s European news operation into the industry leader and, in the process, revolutionized broadcasting. But after the war ended, the Shirer-Murrow relationship shattered. Shirer lost his job and by 1950 found himself blacklisted as a supposed Communist sympathizer. After nearly a decade in the professional wilderness, he began work on The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Published in 1960, Shirer's magnum opus sold millions of copies and was hailed as the masterwork that would "ensure his reputation as long as humankind reads." Ken Cuthbertson's A Complex Fate is a thought-provoking, richly detailed biography of William Shirer. Written with the full cooperation of Shirer’s family, and generously illustrated with photographs, it introduces a new generation of readers to a supremely talented, complex writer, while placing into historical context some of the pivotal media developments of our time.

The author became sickened by the brutal and repressive nature of Nazi rule which overshadowed every aspect of her life. She became involved in the Resistance and the diaries vividly describe her part in the drama and its aftermath.

A haunting personal story of Berlin at the end of the Third Reich—and an unflinching investigation into a family’s Nazi past When Gabrielle Robinson found her grandfather’s Berlin diaries, hidden behind books in her mother’s Vienna apartment, she made a shocking discovery—her beloved Api had been a Nazi. The entries record his daily struggle to survive in a Berlin that was 90% destroyed. Near collapse himself Api, a doctor, tried to help the wounded and dying in nightmarish medical cellars without cots, water or light. The dead were stacked in the rubble outside. Searching to understand why her grandfather had joined the Nazi party, Robinson retraces his steps in the Berlin of the 21st century. She reflects on German guilt, political responsibility, and facing the past. But she also remembers Api, who had given her a loving home in those cold and hungry post-war years. “This a must read for anyone interested in the German experience during WWII” —Ariana Neumann, author of When Time Stopped Scroll up and click “buy now” to read Api’s Berlin Diaries today

The National Book Award–winning historian’s “vivid and moving” eyewitness account of the fall of France to Hitler’s Third Reich at the outset of WWII (The New York Times). As an international war correspondent and radio commentator during World War II, William L. Shirer didn’t just research the fall of France. He was there. In just six weeks, he watched the Third Reich topple one of the world’s oldest military powers—and institute a rule of terror and paranoia. Based on in-person conversations with the leaders, diplomats, generals, and ordinary citizens who both shaped the events and lived through them, Shirer constructs a compelling account of historical events without losing sight of the human experience. From the heroic efforts of the Freedom Fighters to the tactical military misjudgments that caused the fall and the daily realities of life for French citizens under Nazi rule, this fascinating and exhaustively documented account brings this significant episode of history to life. “This is a companion effort to Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, also voluminous but very readable, reflecting once again both Shirer’s own experience and an enormous mass of historical material well digested and assimilated.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

The legendary CBS news journalist’s selection of iconic World War II radio broadcasts from countries throughout Europe. William L. Shirer was the first journalist hired by CBS to cover World War II in Europe, where he continued to work for over a decade as a news broadcaster. This book compiles two and a half years’ worth of wartime broadcasts from Shirer’s time on the ground during WWII. He was with Nazi forces when Hitler invaded Austria and made it a part of Germany under the Anschluss; he was also the first to report back to the United States on the armistice between France and Nazi forces in June of 1940. His daily roundup of news from Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Rome, and London, which documented Nazi Germany and the conditions of countries under invasion and at war, became famous for its gripping urgency. Shirer brought a sense of immediacy to the war for listeners in the United States and worldwide, and his later books, including the seminal Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, became definitive works on World War II history. This collection of Shirer’s radio broadcasts offers all the original suspense and vivid storytelling of the time, bringing World War II to life for a modern audience.

The prominent journalist, historian, and author—an eyewitness to some of the most pivotal events of the twentieth century—tells the story of his final years. In the last book of a three-volume series, William L. Shirer recounts his return to Berlin after the Third Reich’s defeat, his shocking firing by CBS News, and his final visit to Paris sixty years after he first lived there as a cub reporter in the 1920s. It paints a bittersweet picture of his final decades, friends lost to old age, and a changing world. More personal than the first two volumes, this final installment takes an unflinching look at the author’s own struggles after World War II—and his vindication after the publication of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, his most acclaimed work. It also provides intimate details of his often-troubled marriage. This book gives readers a surprising and moving account of the last years of a true historian—and an important witness to history.