Summary of William L. Shirer's Berlin Diary

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 We had the best, happiest, and uneventest year of our lives in 1933. We lived it as we dreamed and planned, beautifully independent of the rest of the world. It couldn’t have gone on for ever.

#2 We have spent the past twelve months doing nothing significant. We swam, hike, and read. We had time to know each other, to loaf, and to wine and eat. We saw the bull-fights in the afternoon and the Barrio Chino at night in Barcelona.

#3 The shooting continued until midnight, when the Mobile Guards began to get the upper hand. Several times, the Place de la Concorde changed hands, but the police were in control by midnight.

#4 The rioting last night was the result of the Stavisky scandal, but the swindles demonstrate the rottenness and weakness of French democracy. Daladier and his Minister of the Interior, Eugène Frot, gave the U. N. C. permission to demonstrate, and they should have refused it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822523180

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights on William L. Shirer's Berlin Diary

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

We had the best, happiest, and uneventest year of our lives in 1933. We lived it as we dreamed and planned, beautifully independent of the rest of the world. It couldn’t have gone on for ever.

#2

We have spent the past twelve months doing nothing significant. We swam, hike, and read. We had time to know each other, to loaf, and to wine and eat. We saw the bull-fights in the afternoon and the Barrio Chino at night in Barcelona.

#3

The shooting continued until midnight, when the Mobile Guards began to get the upper hand. Several times, the Place de la Concorde changed hands, but the police were in control by midnight.

#4

The rioting last night was the result of the Stavisky scandal, but the swindles demonstrate the rottenness and weakness of French democracy. Daladier and his Minister of the Interior, Eugène Frot, gave the U. N. C. permission to demonstrate, and they should have refused it.

#5

The story began to come out about the Austrian general strike. It was civil war. The Socialists were entrenched in the great municipal houses they built after World War I, but Dollfuss and the Heimwehr under Prince Starhemberg had control of the rest of the city.

#6

Hitler’s purge of the Nazi party was more drastic than first reported. Röhm did not kill himself, but was shot on the orders of Hitler. Other dead: Heines, notorious Nazi boss of Silesia, Dr. Erich Klausner, leader of the Catholic Action in Germany, Fritz von Bose and Edgar Jung, two of Papen’s secretaries.

#7

Dollfuss was murdered by the Nazis, who today seized control of the Chancellery and the radio station in Vienna. Apparently their coup had failed, and Miklas and Dr. Schuschnigg were in control. I could not shed any tears for Dollfuss after his cold-blooded slaughter of the Social Democrats last February.

#8

I was offered a job with Universal Service in Berlin, and I accepted. I thought I would meet the secret police sooner or later, but not quite so soon. Two plain-clothes men grabbed me as I stepped off the train, led me a little away, and asked if I were Herr So-and-So. I said no.

#9

I miss the old Berlin of the Republic, with its carefree, emancipated, and civilized air. I dislike the constant Heil Hitler salutes, and the clicking of heels of brown-shirted storm troopers or black-coated S. S. guards marching up and down the street.

#10

Hitler arrived in Nuremberg today at sunset. The streets were packed with wildly cheering Nazis who covered the town’s beautiful Gothic architecture with their flags. I was shocked by the faces of the women when Hitler appeared on the balcony for a moment. They looked up at him as if he were a Messiah.

#11

Hitler’s speeches were so effective because of the atmosphere he created. The crowd was moved by every word he said, and they accepted every lie he told as high truth.

#12

The goose-step was a highly trained, semi-military group of Nazi youths who appeared for the first time today. They broke into a perfect goose-step, and the German spectators went mad with joy.

#13

The party officials packed in the Zeppelin Wiese with their twenty-one thousand flags unfurled in the searchlights like a forest of weird trees. They were merged completely with the Germanic herd under the mystic lights and sounds of the Austrian.

#14

Hitler spoke today to the S. A. storm troopers for the first time since the purge. He absolved them of any blame for the Röhm revolt. There was considerable tension in the stadium, and I wondered if just one of those fifty thousand brown-shirts wouldn’t pull a revolver.

#15

The German army had its day at the rally, fighting a realistic sham battle in the Zeppelin Meadow. The party rally came to an end, and though dead tired, I was glad I came.

#16

I was called to the Paris office on my eight o’clock call, where I was told that the King of Yugoslavia had been assassinated at Marseille this afternoon and that Louis Barthou, the French Foreign Minister, had been badly wounded. Berlin was not greatly disappointed, as King Alexander had been working more closely with the French bloc against Germany.

#17

I have been covering the fight in the Protestant church. A section of the Protestants seems to be showing more guts in the face of Gleichschaltung than the Socialists or Communists did. But Hitler will get them in the end and force on the country a brand of early German paganism.

#18

There has been a lot of talk about Germany secretly arming, though it is difficult to get definite information, and if you did get it and sent it, you would be expelled. Sir Eric Phipps, the British Ambassador, has asked the Wilhelmstrasse about it.

#19

The