The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by journalist William L. Shirer was the first definitive history of Nazi Germany in English.

The book is based largely on the captured documents of the Third Reich, including the diaries of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and General Franz Halder. Additional major sources include testimony and evidence from the Nuremberg trials, British Foreign Office reports, and the detailed diary of Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law and Italian Foreign Minister. Other sources include confidential speeches, conference reports, taped transcripts of telephone conversations, as well as Shirer's personal recollections during the six years he reported on the Third Reich as a journalist.

At the time the book was written, only a part of the diaries of Goebbels was known. Other documents have been discovered and many documents have since become available from Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The book was adapted into a television program for the ABC network in 1966. It was one of the first programs to be marketed as a miniseries.

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William Lawrence Shirer (February 23, 1904 – December 28, 1993) was an American journalist and historian. He became known for his broadcasts on CBS from the German capital of Berlin during the Third Reich through the first year of World War II.

All words above are copied from Wikipedia.org