17. Which giant of twentieth century journalism wrote the runaway bestseller "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", a history of Nazi Germany?
From Quiz Giants of American Twentieth Century Journalism
Answer:
William L. Shirer
Upon graduating from college in 1925, Shirer left for Europe, preferring Europe to what he called "the land of Prohibition, fundamentalism, puritanism and Coolidgeism". He spent the next twenty years reporting from various places in Europe, primarily Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and also India. After the end of World War Two Shirer finally came back to the U.S. and worked for CBS radio till he was fired by Edward R. Murrow in 1947; this firing took place despite the fact that Shirer's show was the highest-rated news commentary show on radio at the time. This caused a rift between the two old friends which never healed.
After being fired from CBS, Shirer could not find steady work, apparently as a result of being blackballed by the broadcast industry. It was this lack of work, and the need to support his family, that led to his writing "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". As he describes in his memoir "A Native's Return", the U.S. government had stored tons of documents brought back to the U.S. from Nazi Germany, and, incredibly, nobody had ever bothered to do any reviewing, sorting, or cataloging of the documents. Shirer undertook this task, and that work, coupled with his personal observations from his time stationed in pre-war Berlin, resulted in his bestselling book.
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