A review by devonforest
End of a Berlin Diary by William L. Shirer

5.0

This series gives great insight into what the world was thinking during WWII. It was disturbing in many ways reading Hitler's own words and seeing how he lied to start a war. This was the original fake news and somehow we seem to have come almost full circle. There was a part, I can't remember the exact wording, but it was along the lines of the author hoped we would learn from this war and fearing we'd forget the past. It feels like his fears are coming true. There were so many parallels between then and now it's scary. Reading about how the German people were more upset about losing than they were about the crimes that were committed surprised me. These are the things we don't learn about in textbooks.

I was slightly disappointed when I realized there was a 4 year gap from when the last book left off skipping over the US getting involved and the concentration camps. There was a section where the confession of the commander of Auschwitz was included. The way he talked terrified me. He talked about "improving" the execution chambers.

I think this really is an important series to read in order to get the true sense of what the world was like during WWII.