William L Shirer Popular Books

William L Shirer Biography & Facts

William Lawrence 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 became 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 (1939–1940). Along 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); The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969), which drew on his experience living and working in France from 1925 to 1933; and a three-volume autobiography, 20th Century Journey (1976 to 1990). Personal life Shirer's father was a Chicago lawyer, when he was born in 1904. When he was a child, his father died and the family moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Shirer attended Washington High School and Coe College in Cedar Rapids. He graduated from Coe in 1925. He had to deliver newspapers and sell eggs to help the family finances. After leaving school he worked on the local newspaper, but ultimately was determined to leave Iowa. Working his way to Europe on a cattle boat to spend the summer there, he remained in Europe for 15 years.: 236  He was a European correspondent for the Chicago Tribune from 1925 to 1932, covering Europe, the Near East and India. In India he formed a friendship with Mohandas Gandhi. Shirer lived and worked in France for several years starting in 1925. He left in the early 1930s but returned frequently to Paris throughout the decade. He lived and worked as a correspondent in Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1940. In 1931, Shirer married Theresa ("Tess") Stiberitz, an Austrian photographer. The couple had two daughters, Eileen ("Inga") and Linda. Shirer and his wife divorced in 1970. In 1972 he married Martha Pelton, whom he divorced in 1975. His third (and final) marriage was to Irina Lugovskaya, a long-time teacher of Russian at Simon's Rock College. Shirer and Irina had no children. Shirer was residing in Lenox, Massachusetts at the time of his death. Pre-war years As a print journalist and later as a radio reporter for CBS, Shirer covered the strengthening one-party rule in Nazi Germany beginning in 1933. Shirer reported on Adolf Hitler's peacetime triumphs like the return of the Saarland to Germany and the remilitarization of the Rhineland. Shirer was hired in 1934 for the Berlin bureau of Universal Service, one of William Randolph Hearst's two wire services. In Berlin Diary, Shirer described this move, in a self-proclaimed bad pun, as going from "bad to Hearst". When Universal Service folded in August 1937, Shirer was first taken on as second man by Hearst's other wire service, International News Service, then laid off a few weeks later. On the day when Shirer received two weeks' notice from INS, he received a wire from Edward R. Murrow, European manager of Columbia Broadcasting System, suggesting that the two meet. At their meeting a few days later in Berlin, Murrow said that he could not cover all of Europe from London and that he was seeking an experienced correspondent to open a CBS office on the Continent. He offered Shirer a job subject to an audition—a "trial broadcast"—to let CBS directors and vice presidents in New York judge Shirer's voice. Shirer feared that his reedy voice was unsuitable for radio, but he was hired. As European bureau chief, he set up headquarters in Vienna, a more central and more neutral spot than Berlin. His job was to arrange broadcasts, and early in his career he expressed disappointment at having to hire newspaper correspondents to do the broadcasting; at the time, CBS correspondents were prohibited from speaking on the radio. Shirer was the first of "Murrow's Boys", broadcast journalists who provided news coverage during World War II and afterward. CBS's prohibition of correspondents talking on the radio, viewed by Murrow and Shirer as "absurd", ended in March 1938. Shirer was in Vienna on March 11, 1938, when the German annexation of Austria (Anschluss) took place after weeks of mounting pressure by Nazi Germany on the Austrian government. As the only American broadcaster in Vienna (NBC rival Max Jordan was not in town), Shirer had a scoop but lacked the facilities to report it to his audience. Occupying German troops controlling the Austrian state radio studio would not let him broadcast. At Murrow's suggestion, Shirer flew to London via Berlin; he recalled in Berlin Diary that the direct flight to London was filled with Jews trying to escape from German-occupied Austria. Once in London, Shirer broadcast the first uncensored eyewitness account of the annexation. Meanwhile, Murrow flew from London to Vienna to cover for Shirer. The next day, CBS's New York headquarters asked Shirer and Murrow to produce a European roundup, a 30-minute broadcast featuring live reporting from five European capitals: Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Rome, and London. The broadcast, arranged in eight hours using the telephone and broadcasting facilities of the day, was a major feat. This first news roundup established a formula still used in broadcast journalism. It was also the genesis of what became CBS World News Roundup, still on the network each morning and evening, network broadcasting's oldest news series. Shirer reported on the Munich Agreement and Hitler's occupation of Czechoslovakia before reporting on the growing tensions between Germany and Poland in 1939 and the German invasion of Poland that launched World War II on September 1, 1939. During much of the pre-war period, Shirer was based in Berlin and attended Hitler's speeches and several party rallies in Nuremberg. Reporting the war from Berlin 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. Shirer reported the signing of the German armistice with France on June 22, 1940, to the American people before it had been announced by the Germans. His commentary from Compiègne was hailed as a masterpiece. On the day before the armistice was to be signed, Hitler ordered all foreign correspondents covering the German Army from Paris to move back to Berlin. It was Hitler's intention that the Armistice should be reported to the world by Nazi sources. Shirer avoided being returned to Berlin by leaving t.... Discover the William L Shirer popular books. Find the top 100 most popular William L Shirer books.