The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

by William Shirer

  In Germany, to put it mildly, the book did not fare very well with the reviewers. The Germans simply could not face up to their past. Led by the chancellor of West Germany, Konrad Adenauer, the book was furiously attacked and the author maligned. “A German-hater!” Adenauer called me. Since the book dealt objectively with Nazi Germany and the crimes the Germans committed against the human spirit and against their neighbors and against the Jews of Europe, and since I allowed the documented facts to speak for themselves, I was somewhat taken back by the vehemence of the German reaction, but not entirely surprised.

  And now, as the thirtieth-anniversary edition of The Rise and Fall goes to press, the world is suddenly confronted with a new reunification of Germany. Soon, united, Germany will be strong again economically and, if it wishes, militarily, as it was in the time of Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler. And Europe will be faced again with the German problem. If the past is any guide, the outlook is not very promising for Germany’s neighbors, who twice in my lifetime have been invaded by the Teutonic armies. The last time, under Hitler, as the readers of this book are reminded, the German behavior was a horror in its barbarism.

  People ask now: Have the Germans changed? Many in the West appear to believe so. I myself am not so sure, my view no doubt clouded by the personal experience of having lived and worked in Germany in the Nazi time. The truth is that no one really knows the answer to that crucial question. And quite understandably the nations that were former victims of German conquest do not want to take any chances again.

  Is there a solution to the German problem? Perhaps. It lies in enmeshing reunited Germany in a European security system out of which it could never break loose to pursue its past policies of aggression.

  In one fundamental sense, the situation has changed since the fall of the Third Reich. The development of the hydrogen bomb, as I mentioned at the end of my Foreword, written in 1959, has rendered an old-fashioned conqueror like Adolf Hitler obsolete. If ever a new adventurer such as Hitler tried to lead the Germans to new conquests, he would be repelled by a nuclear response. That would put a quick end to German aggression. But, unfortunately, it would put an end to the world too.

  So maybe the H-bomb and the rockets and planes and submarines designed to deliver it, horrible threat though they are to the survival of the planet, will, ironically, help, at least, to solve the German problem. No more bloody conquests by the Germans, or by anyone else.

  Perhaps it will help too if the erring governments and the wondering people of this world will remember the dark night of Nazi terror and genocide that almost engulfed our world and that is the subject of this book. Remembrance of the past helps us to understand the present.

  William L. Shirer

  May 1990

  NOTES

  Abbreviations used in these notes:

  DBrFP—Documents on British Foreign Policy. Files of the British Foreign Office.

  DDI—I Documenti diplomatica italiani. Files of the Italian government.

  DGFP—Documents on German Foreign Policy. Files of the German Foreign Office.

  FCNA—Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs. Summary records of Hitler’s conferences with the Commander in Chief of the German Navy.

  NCA—Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression. Part of the Nuremberg documents.

  N.D.—Nuremberg document.

  NSR—Nazi–Soviet Relations. From the files of the German Foreign Office.

  TMWC—Trial of the Major War Criminals. Nuremberg documents and testimony.

  TWC—Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals.

  CHAPTER 1

  1. The Hammerstein memorandum, cited by Wheeler-Bennett in his The Nemesis of Power, p. 285. The memorandum was written for Wheeler-Bennett by Dr. Kunrath von Hammerstein, son of the General, and was based on his father’s notes and diaries. It is entitled “Schleicher, Hammerstein and the Seizure of Power.”

  2. Joseph Goebbels, Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei, p. 251.

  3. Hammerstein memorandum, cited by Wheeler-Bennett, op. cit., p. 280.

  4. Goebbels, op. cit., p. 250.

  5. Ibid., p. 252.

  6. Ibid., p. 252.

  7. André François-Poncet, The Fateful Years, p. 48. He was French ambassador in Berlin 1930–38.

  8. Goebbels, Kaiserhof, pp. 251–54.

  9. Proclamation of Sept. 5, 1934, at Nuremberg.

  10. Friedrich Meinecke, The German Catastrophe,

  11. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, American edition (Boston, 1943), In a good number of quotations from this book I have altered the English translation somewhat to bring it closer to the original text in German.

  12. Konrad Heiden, Der Fuehrer, All who write on the Third Reich are indebted to Heiden for material on the early life of Hitler.

  13. Ibid., p. 41.

  14. Ibid., p. 43.

  15. Ibid., p. 43.

  16. Mein Kampf, p. 6.

  17. Ibid., p. 8.

  18. Ibid., pp. 8–10.

  19. Ibid., p. 10.

  20. Hitler’s Secret Conversations, 1941–44, p. 287.

  21. Ibid., p. 346.

  22. Ibid., p. 547.

  23. Ibid., pp. 566–67

  24. August Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew, p. 50.

  25. Ibid., p. 49.

  26. Mein Kampf, pp. 14–15.

  27. Kubizek, op. cit., p. 52, and Hitler’s Secret Conversations, p. 567.

  28. Kubizek, op. cit., p. 44.

  29. Mein Kampf, p. 18.

  30. Ibid., p. 21.

  31. Kubizek, op. cit., p. 59.

  32. lbid., p. 76.

  33. Ibid., pp. 54–55.

  34. Konrad Heiden, Der Fuehrer, p. 52.

  35. Mein Kampf, p. 20.

  36. Ibid., p. 18.

  37. Ibid., p. 18.

  38. Ibid., p. 21.

  39. Ibid., pp. 21–22.

  40. Ibid., p. 34.

  41. Heiden, Der Fuehrer, p. 54.

  42. Ibid., p. 68.

  43. Mein Kampf, p. 34.

  44. Ibid., p. 22.

  45. Ibid., pp. 35–37.

  46. Ibid., pp. 22, 125.

  47. Ibid., pp. 38–49.

  48. Ibid., p. 41.

  49. Ibid., pp. 43–44.

  50. Ibid., pp. 116–17.

  51. Ibid., p. 118.

  52. Ibid., pp. 55, 69, 122.

  53. Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday, p. 63.

  54. Mein Kampf, p. 100.

  55. Ibid., p. 107.

  56. Ibid., p. 52.

  57. Kubizek, op. cit., p. 79.

  58. Mein Kampf, p. 52.

  59. Ibid., p. 56.

  60. Ibid., pp. 56–57.

  61. Ibid., p. 59.

  62. Ibid., pp. 63–64.

  63. Ibid., pp. 123–24.

  64. Ibid., pp. 161, 163.

  CHAPTER 2

  1. Mein Kampf, pp. 204–5.

  2. Ibid., p. 202.

  3. Heiden, Der Fuehrer, p. 84.

  4. Rudolf Olden, Hitler, the Pawn, p. 70.

  5. Mein Kampf, p. 193.

  6. Ibid., pp. 205–6.

  7. Ibid., p. 207.

  8. Ibid., pp. 215–16.

  9. Ibid., pp. 210, 213.

  10. Ibid., pp. 218–19.

  11. Ibid., p. 220.

  12. Ibid., pp. 221–22.

  13. Ibid., p. 224.

  14. Ibid., p. 687n.

  15. Ibid., p. 687.

  16. Ibid., p. 354.

  17. Ibid., p. 355.

  18. Ibid., pp. 369–70.

  19. Konrad Heiden, A History of National Socialism, p. 36.

  20. Mein Kampf, pp. 496–97. The italics are Hitler’s.

  21. Heiden, A History of National Socialism, pp. 51–52.

  22. Heiden, Der Fuehrer, pp. 98–99.

  23. Heiden, A History of National Socialism, p. 52.

  24. Heiden, Hitler, pp. 90–91.

  CHAPTER 3

  1. Wheeler-Bennett, Wooden Titan: Hindenburg, pp. 207–8.

  2. Ib
id., p. 131.

  3. Wheeler-Bennett’s Nemesis, p. 58.

  4. Franz L. Neumann, Behemoth, p. 23.

  5. Heiden, Der Fuehrer, pp. 131–33.

  6. Ibid., p. 164.

  7. Lt. Gen. Friedrich von Rabenau, Seeckt, aus seinem Leben, II, p. 342.

  8. Ibid.,

  9. Karl Alexander von Mueller, quoted by Heiden in Der Fuehrer, p. 190.

  10. The record of the court proceedings is contained in Der Hitler Prozess.

  CHAPTER 4

  1. The figures are from a study of Eher Verlag’s royalty statements made by Prof. Oron James Hale and published in The American Historical Review, July 1955, under the title “Adolf Hitler: Taxpayer.”

  2. The quotations are from Mein Kampf, pp. 619, 672, 674.

  3. Ibid., pp. 138–39.

  4. Ibid., p. 140.

  5. Ibid., pp. 643, 646, 652.

  6. Ibid., p. 649.

  7. Ibid., p. 675.

  8. Ibid., p. 654.

  9. Ibid., pp. 150–53.

  10. Adolf Hitlers Reden, p. 32. Quoted by Bullock, op. cit., p. 68.

  11. Mein Kampf, pp. 247–53.

  12. Ibid., pp. 134–35, 285, 289.

  13. Ibid., p. 290.

  14. Ibid., pp. 295–96.

  15. Ibid., p. 296, for this and the two quotations above it.

  16. Ibid., p. 646.

  17. Ibid., pp. 383–84.

  18. Ibid., p. 394.

  19. Ibid., pp. 402–4.

  20. Ibid., p. 396.

  21. Ibid., pp. 449–50.

  22. A. J. P. Taylor, The Course of German History, p. 24.

  23. Wilhelm Roepke, The Solution of the German Problem, 153.

  24. Mein Kampf, pp. 154, 225–26.

  25. Hitler’s Secret Conversations, p. 198.

  26. See his study of Chamberlain in The Third Reich, ed. by Baumont, Fried and Vermeil.

  27. The foregoing, from Chamberlain back to Fichte and Hegel, is based on the works of the authors and on quotations and interpretations in such books as German Philosophy and Politics, by John Dewey; The German Catastrophe, by Friedrich Meinecke; The Solution of the German Problem, by Wilhelm Roepke; A History of Western Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell; Thus Speaks Germany, ed. by W. W. Coole and M. F. Potter; The Third Reich, ed. by Baumont, Fried and Vermeil; German Nationalism: The Tragedy of a People, by Louis L. Snyder; German History: Some New German Views, ed. by Hans Kohn; The Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany, by T. L. Jarman; Der Fuehrer, by Konrad Heiden; The Course of German History, by A. J. P. Taylor; L’Allemagne Contemporaine, by Edmond Vermeil; History of Germany, by Hermann Pinnow.

  E. Eyck’s Bismarck and the German Empire is an invaluable study.

  The limitations of space in a work of this kind prohibited discussion of the considerable influence on the Third Reich of a number of other German intellectuals whose writings were popular and significant in Germany: Schlegel, J. Goerres, Novalis, Arndt, Jahn, Lagarde, List, Droysen, Ranke, Mommsen, Constantin Frantz, Stoecker, Bernhardi, Klaus Wagner, Langbehn, Lange, Spengler.

  28. Mein Kampf, p. 381.

  29. Ibid., p. 293.

  30. Ibid., pp. 213–13.

  31. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of History, pp. 31–32. Quoted by Bullock, op. cit., p. 351.

  32. Quoted in The Third Reich, ed. by Baumont et al., pp. 204–5, from two works of Nietzsche: Zur Genealogie der Moral and Der Wille zur Macht.

  CHAPTER 5

  1. Kurt Ludecke, I Knew Hitler, pp. 217–18.

  2. Baynes (ed.), The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, I, pp. 155–56.

  3. Curt Riess, Joseph Goebbels, p. 8.

  4. This and the other quoted Hitler reminiscences of January 16–17, 1942, about Obersalzberg are from Hitler’s Secret Conversations.

  5. Such authorities as Heiden and Bullock tell of the Raubals coming to Haus Wachenfeld in 1925, when Geli Raubal was seventeen. But Hitler makes it clear that he did not acquire the villa until 1928, at which time he says, “I immediately rang up my sister in Vienna with the news, and begged her to be so good as to take over the part of mistress of the house.” See Hitler’s Secret Conversations, p. 177.

  6. Heiden, Der Fuehrer, pp. 384–86.

  7. See the fascinating analysis of Hitler’s income tax returns made by Prof. Oron James Hale in The American Historical Review, July 1955.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Heiden, Der Fuehrer, p. 419.

  11. The speech does not appear in Baynes or in Roussy de Sales’s collection of Hitler’s speeches (Hitler, My New Order). It was published verbatim in the Voelkischer Beobachter (special Reichswehr edition) on March 26, 1929, and is quoted at length in “Blueprint of the Nazi Underground,” Research Studies of the State College of Washington, June 1945.

  12. The quotations are from the Frankfurter Zeitung, September 26, 1930.

  13. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression [hereafter referred to as NCA], Supplement A, p. 1194 (Nuremberg Document [hereafter, N.D.] EC-440).

  14. Otto Dietrich, Mit Hitler in die Macht.

  15. Funk’s testimony, NCA, Suppl. A, pp. 1194–1204 (N.D. EC-440), and NCA, V., pp. 478–95 (N.D. 2328–PS). Thyssen’s declarations are from his book I Paid Hitler, pp. 79–108.

  16. NCA, VII, pp. 512–13 (N.D. EC-456).

  CHAPTER 6

  1. According to Heiden, Der Fuehrer, p. 433.

  2. Heiden, History of National Socialism, p. 166.

  3. Goebbels, Kaiserhof, pp. 19–20.

  4. Ibid., pp. 80–81.

  5. Wheeler-Bennett, Nemesis, p. 243.

  6. The above quotes are from Goebbels, Kaiserhof, pp. 81–104.

  7. François-Poncet, op. cit., p. 23.

  8. Franz von Papen, Memoirs, p. 162.

  9. NCA, Suppl. A, p. 508 (N.D. 3309–PS).

  10. Hermann Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction.

  11. Goebbels was not caught napping this time, as he had been on August 13. He immediately gave the press the exchange of correspondence and it was published in the morning papers of Nov. 25. It is available in the Jahrbuch des Oeffen-lichen Rechts, Vol. 21, 1933–40.

  12. Papen, op. cit., pp. 216–17.

  13. Ibid., p. 220.

  14. Ibid., p. 221.

  15. François-Poncet, op. cit., p. 43. He says erroneously, “seventy days.”

  16. NCA, II, pp. 922–24.

  17. Kurt von Schuschnigg, Farewell, Austria, pp. 165–66.

  18. Meissner affidavit, NCA, Suppl. A, p. 511.

  19. The Hammerstein memorandum, Wheeler-Bennett’s Nemesis, p. 280.

  20. Hitler’s Secret Conversations, p. 404.

  21. Papen, op. cit., pp. 243–44.

  CHAPTER 7

  1. NCA, III, pp. 272–75 (N.D. 351–PS).

  2. Goebbels, Kaiserhof, p. 256.

  3. See affidavit of Georg von Schnitzler, NCA, VII, p. 501 (N.D. EC-439); speeches of Goering and Hitler, NCA, VI, p. 1080 (N.D. D–203): Schacht’s interrogation, NCA, VI. p. 465 (N.D. 3725–PS); Funk’s interrogation, NCA, V, p. 495 (N.D. 2828–PS).

  4. Goebbels, Kaiserhof, pp. 269–70.

  5. Papen, op. cit.,

  6. Rudolf Diels, Lucifer ante Portas, p. 194.

  7. For sources on the responsibility for the Reichstag fire see: Halder’s affidavit, NCA, VI, p. 635 (N.D. 3740–PS); transcript of Gisevius’ cross-examination on April 25, 1946, Trial of the Major War Criminals [hereafter cited as TMWC], XII, pp. 252–53; Diehl’s affidavit, Goering’s denial, TMWC, IX, pp. 432–36, and NCA, VI, pp. 298–99 (N.D. 3593–PS); Willy Frischauer, The Rise and Fall of Hermann Goering, pp. 88–95; Douglas Reed, The Burning, of the Reichstag; John Gunther, Inside Europe (Gunther attended the trial at Leipzig). There are many alleged testaments and confessions by those claiming to have participated in the Nazi firing of the Reichstag or to have positive knowledge of it, but none, so far as I know, has ever been substantiated. Of these, memoranda by Ernst Oberfohren, a Nationalist deputy, and Karl Ernst, the Berlin S.A. leader, have been given some
credence. Both men were slain by the Nazis within a few months of the fire.