Normally I wouldn’t review a book I’d only read 22% of, but when that 22% is the size of a normal book, I feel pretty comfortable counting it. Also, nothing better than getting to pick out fuck off gifs for a book you hated, so there’s that I guess.
I was so jazzed to tackle this behemoth as one of my first books in 2019. I’ve heard so many people talk about how this is the place to start with World War 2 history and how it’s incredibly readable, etc etc. Basically fawning all over it. Cue my naive disappointment when it turns out a privileged straight white man from mid-century keeps talking about “notorious homosexual perverts” within the early Nazi party leaders. As if their sexual orientation is proof of their “depraved morals”. Shirer is already dead, but I’d still like to tell him to fuck the fuck off and die in a fire.
YOU’RE LITERALLY WRITING ABOUT NAZIS. YOU DON’T NEED TO POINT TO THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATION TO PROVE THEY ARE IMMORAL AND BAD . THEY’RE LITERALLY NAZIS. THE NAZISM SPEAKS FOR ITSELF.
I started searching the interwebs eventually to see if other people were complaining about this insidious part of the book and unsurprisingly, there was plenty of criticism to be found. Turns out, dude didn’t find time to mention the persecution of queer people by Nazis. 1614 pages and not ONE reference to that? Fuck the fuck off Shirer.
I recommend this article for a more thorough takedown, but here’s a takeaway quote:
Shirer’s work meticulously explores virtually every other aspect of Nazism. Quite rightly, he gives great prominence to Hitler’s anti-Jewish policies, with 58 references in his index. Yet the same index contains not even one entry concerning the Nazi witch-hunt of homosexuals. This is not point-scoring: gays versus Jews. Both groups suffered, but while the suffering of Jews is acknowledged, the suffering of homosexuals is not.
While doing internet research, I also found out that a lot of historians don’t actually think the book is that great or accurate in general, so maybe people should just stop reading this book altogether. On that note, any nonfiction history gurus here want to rec me some WWII books that are better than this one?