The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer

Read by Grover Gardner.

Behind the Scenes Story of Megalomania

This book had been sitting on my bookcase for thirty years. It had always intimidated me, whether it was the nearly three inches it covered on the shelf or the prominent swastika on the spine, I never had the spine to read it. Now that I have finally adopted the technology to listen to it, plugging in my ear-buds seemed to be an easy was to cover this material. I found the first part of the narrative, The Rise, to be very informative. Having read or listened to many WWII books I was familiar with the general series of events surrounding Hitler’s rise to power, but Shirer’s account made it all make sense to me. I can now relate with some sense of confidence the importance of the Beer Hall Putsch. I had always though of it as some sort of comedic blunder but now I realize it to be the pivotal event propelling Hitler into the National Socialist he would become. This behind the scenes information is the best feature of the book. What I did not get from this book is the overall sense of the progress of the war. Shirer is focused solely on the machinations of the Nazi Party and the megalomania of Adolph Hiler. The amount of narrative space given to the attempts on Hitler’s life, including the famous Valkyrie plot, is enormous considered against the backdrop of the Third Reich. This account does give one a sense that Hitler was a figure of destiny and nothing was to deter him from accomplishing his nefarious goals. I enjoyed this narrative history very much, the lacuna concerning the balance of the goings on of the was have rekindled my interest so that I will certainly seek out more WWII history.

Grover Gardner is for me an acquired taste. His high-pitched nasally voice grates on my ears. But over the course of the first few hours I came to enjoy his perfect pronunciation and steady pacing. He became the voice in my head for William L. Shirer; he became transparent. Perhaps it is good to have a monotonous reader for works of history thus allowing the direct transmission of the words on the page to the brain. I found Gardner’s lack of intonation to be an obstacle to be overcome. That it can be overcome is a testimony to the dynamic force of the narrative.