The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

What Hacker News says

1. firefaxSep 2026
   Two books I read after 9/11 shaped my path greatly:

   1.) Stasi: The Untold Story Of The East German Secret Police

   ISBN #: 0813337445

   2.) The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

   ISBN #: 9780671728694

   Both should be available in most public libraries, but with the ISBN you can usually get almost anything via inter-library loan.

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2. kbelderSep 2026
   >The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

   An amazing book. I'm not sure how it's particularly career-path-impacting, but it is fascinating being able to follow the cause and effect chain in Germany leading up to and all through the war (in excruciating detail).

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3. nicoisSep 2026
   I just finished my second read of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It's quite engaging, and also quite helpful to juxtapose against current political events, both to identify the similarities (media control) and divergences.

   Rereading the Lies of Locke Lamure. If only the sequel were half as good as it...

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4. JadeNBMay 2025
   Couldn't agree more about history. I was a good student who couldn't stand history (called "social studies" in my school), did the minimum to get through it wth good grades, then never took a college history course that wasn't required. Then one day in the library I was looking for a big thick book to pass a chunk of time, and grabbed Shirer's "The rise and fall of the Third Reich." Not only was it fascinating on its own, but it referenced so much of the history that underlay the events of WWII that it sent me off on a hunt to fill in that missing background. And, well, now I'm hooked!

   (I'm not sure if I didn't enjoy the grade-school stuff because of what I now recognize as its jingoism (it's so much more interesting to read the history of people making choices for human reasons, sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes just wrong, than of godlike heroes helming countries foredestined for greatness!), or just because I wasn't ready for it.)

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5. JadeNBMar 2025
   The book that really got me hooked was The rise and fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer. He was a journalist in Berlin before WWII, and you can see the journalistic background shine through in his narrative. A lot of what I've read since then has been in trying to trace back the references he gives to how the events of WWII recapitulated older conflicts, which I then went and found references in which to learn about.

   Barbara Tuchman is a delightful mostly medieval historian, and Mary Beard is a wonderful Roman historian. Both have a decidedly personal voice, which happened to click well with me; your milage may vary.

   Someone else in the thread mentioned Simon Sebag Montefiore, and I've enjoyed most of what he's written. It feels a little less scholarly than some other popular historical sources, but that's just an informal impression from a tyro.

   Lots of people enjoy Yuval Harari, but I do not enjoy him at all.

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6. datavirtueFeb 2025
   The grift never ends. The library will then purchase tens of millions of dollars worth of The Art of the Deal and stock the shelves with his wisdom.

   BTW, the Orange One has now modelled himself after Adolf Hitler, a man who's political accomplishments no other has yet to achieve in human history. If you don't have time to read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, watch Hitler: A Career. It is quite clear that they (Trump's team) are applying the lessons from that era and are aiming at retaining power.

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