A few things about Shirer: Firstly, he had worked in Germany until he was asked to leave once Germany declared war on the US in 1941; he had lived through - and reported on (sometimes superbly) what was happening in Germany for US radio (and the print media) in the 30s.
And he spoke German - which meant (unlike Hugh Trevor-Roper, for example), that he had some sort of cultural awareness, and a nose for nuance. As an American 'liberal', living inn (and reporting on)Germany in the 30s, he "got" the horror of what the Nazis were, what they stood for, and what their appalling ambitious were.
After the war, he covered the Nuremberg trials as a reporter.
He was one of the last of that century of outstanding journalists that the US produced - roughly from the 1860s to the 1960s - hardboiled individuals who yet knew their history, culture and politics, and who wrote his articles, and books in an exquisite and deceptively plain prose.
In The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, he made no pretence at objectivity - he loathed the Nazis and had loathed them since the 30s, - but he did attempt to look at what gave rise to them with a scientists's interest in evidence.
And his sources were superlative; just read the footnotes in the book - not just public sources, but letters from leading players who were more than happy to communicate with him in writing and in person (Franz Halder is a case in point).
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@Scepticalscribe Have you read the book "Strategy: A History" by Lawrence Freedman? It was recommended and on my list but couldn't find much insight on it of value.
No, I haven't.
As for The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, this was a book I requested from my parents as a birthday present, for my twelfth birthday; it duly arrived, and I devoured it.
Needless to say, at that age, I can't say that I understood everything in it (I remember asking my mother what Shirer could possibly have meant when he wrote about Hitler's "psychological insight" - I didn't understand what the term meant - and she did the best she could to explain what her understanding of the term was) but the history was compelling.
Anyway, I loved it then, and still love it, and have re-visited it at various times in the intervening years - often to check a source, or fact, such as after I had visited some dreadful places in Lithuania in the early 1990s, where the best part of a quarter of a million Jews had been murdered, and, on my return home, I found myself consulting Shirer to check sources; his book corroborated my notes - including some stats, places and numbers I had noted - perfectly.
