This is Berlin. A Narrative History 1938-40.

William L. Shirer was, when he died in 1993, two months short of his ninetieth birthday, one of the most famous journalists in the world. His best known book was “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” (1959). Shirer became the principal CBS European correspondent, based first in Vienna, then in Berlin. In 1938 he began the series of broadcasts, most of them introduced by acrisp “This is Berlin”, which was to make him famous across America. What had he reported? The impression the transcripts of his Berlin broadcasts most clearly conveys is his immersion in contemporay German life. The Germany he knew in 1939 was not enthused by the prospect of war. Later, Shirer was able to breathe freely only on is rare escapes from Germany to neutral territory in Holland 1940. Otherwise to Switzerland. Even then he had to be circumspect in his reporting, which was heard in Berlin, lest his credentials were withdrawn.