The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is a non-fiction book by William L. Shirer chronicling the general history of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. It was first published in 1960, by Simon & Schuster in the United States, where it won a National Book Award. It was a bestseller in both the U.S. and Europe, and a critical success outside Germany, where harsh criticism stimulated sales. Academic historians were generally negative.

Rise and Fall is based upon captured Third Reich documents, the available diaries of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, General Franz Halder, and of the Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano, evidence and testimony from the Nuremberg trials, British Foreign Office reports, and the author's recollection of six years reporting on the Third Reich for newspapers, the United Press International (UPI), and CBS Radio —terminated by Nazi Party censorship in 1940.