46 Facts About William Shirer

William Lawrence Shirer was an American journalist and war correspondent.

William Shirer wrote The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a history of Nazi Germany that has been read by many and cited in scholarly works for more than 50 years.

Originally a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the International News Service, Shirer was the first reporter hired by Edward R Murrow for what became a CBS radio team of journalists known as "Murrow's Boys".

William Shirer became known for his broadcasts from Berlin, from the rise of the Nazi dictatorship through the first year of World War II .

William Shirer wrote more than a dozen books besides The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, including Berlin Diary ; The Collapse of the Third Republic, which drew on his experience living and working in France from 1925 to 1933; and a three-volume autobiography, 20th Century Journey .

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William Shirer's father was a Chicago lawyer, when he was born in 1904.

William Shirer attended Washington High School and Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

William Shirer had to deliver newspapers and sell eggs to help the family finances.

William Shirer made clear to his mother and friends, remaining in Iowa after college was not an option.

William Shirer was European correspondent for the Chicago Tribune from 1925 to 1932, covering Europe, the Near East and India.

William Shirer lived and worked in France for several years starting in 1925.

William Shirer left in the early 1930s but returned frequently to Paris throughout the decade.

William Shirer lived and worked as a correspondent in Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1940.

In 1931, William Shirer married Theresa Stiberitz, an Austrian photographer.

William Shirer was residing in Lenox, Massachusetts at the time of his death.

William Shirer reported on Adolf Hitler's peacetime triumphs like the return of the Saarland to Germany and the remilitarization of the Rhineland.

In Berlin Diary, William Shirer described this move, in a self-proclaimed bad pun, as going from "bad to Hearst".

When Universal Service folded in August 1937, William Shirer was first taken on as second man by Hearst's other wire service, International News Service, then laid off a few weeks later.

William Shirer offered Shirer a job subject to an audition—a "trial broadcast"—to let CBS directors and vice presidents in New York judge Shirer's voice.

William Shirer feared that his reedy voice was unsuitable for radio, but he was hired.

William Shirer's job was to arrange broadcasts, and early in his career he expressed disappointment at having to hire newspaper correspondents to do the broadcasting; at the time, CBS correspondents were prohibited from speaking on the radio.

William Shirer was the first of "Murrow's Boys", broadcast journalists who provided news coverage during World War II and afterward.

At Murrow's suggestion, William Shirer flew to London via Berlin; he recalled in Berlin Diary that the direct flight to London was filled with Jews trying to escape from German-occupied Austria.

When war broke out on the Western Front in 1940, William Shirer moved forward with the German troops, reporting firsthand on the German "Blitzkrieg".

William Shirer avoided being returned to Berlin by leaving the press hotel early in the morning and hitching a ride to Compiegne with a German officer who despised Hitler.

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William Shirer spent five minutes before he went on the air calling CBS radio in New York, hoping that the broadcast would get through.

When German engineers in Berlin heard William Shirer calling New York, they assumed that he was authorized to broadcast.

When CBS heard William Shirer's call, transmission was put through live, thus for six hours William Shirer's report was the only news the world had of the Armistice.

William Shirer was granted more freedom than German reporters writing or broadcasting for domestic audiences.

At the beginning of the war, German officials established censorship; William Shirer recalled that the restrictions were similar to wartime censorship elsewhere, restricting information that could be used to Germany's military disadvantage.

William Shirer resorted to subtler ways until the censors caught on.

William Shirer was tipped off that the Gestapo was building an espionage case against him, which carried the death penalty.

William Shirer began making arrangements to leave Germany, which he did in December 1940.

William Shirer smuggled his diaries and notes out of Germany and used them for his Berlin Diary, a firsthand, day-by-day account of events in Nazi Germany during five years of peace and one year of war.

William Shirer'storians comparing the original manuscript diary with the published text discovered that Shirer made many changes.

William Shirer returned to Europe to report on the Nuremberg trials in 1945.

William Shirer received a 1946 Peabody Award for Outstanding Reporting and Interpretation of News for his work at CBS.

William Shirer briefly provided analysis for the Mutual Broadcasting System and then found himself unable to find regular radio work.

William Shirer was named in Red Channels, which practically barred him from broadcasting and print journalism, and he was forced into lecturing for income.

CBS maintained that William Shirer resigned based on a comment made in an impromptu interview, but William Shirer said he was essentially forced out.

William Shirer contended that the root of his troubles was that the network and sponsor did not stand by him because of his on-air comments, such as those critical of the Truman Doctrine, and what he viewed as an emphasis on placating sponsors rather than an emphasis on journalism.

William Shirer said that the sponsor had hinted that he was "too liberal" at a time when the Cold War was beginning.

William Shirer blamed Murrow for his departure from CBS, referring to Murrow as "Paley's toady".

William Shirer admitted to being "puzzled" as to why Murrow did not stand by him in this situation.

Tuesday after the broadcast announcing William Shirer's final show would be in a week, picketers appeared in front of the entrance to CBS.

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William Shirer says that, in private, he and Murrow were contemptuous of Paley and almost always sided against him in the 1930s.