Shrirer is an odd mix of historian and primary source. Rise and Fall is meant to be a history, but Shrier was there, he saw the Nazis come to power and so that taints his objectivity. The books is largely accurate but it might be tainted by Shrirer's own biases more than the average history.

Also, Rise and Fall is, in a way, a formal companion book to Berlin Diary, where Shrirer first found an audience. Berlin Diary is an adaptation of his actual diary and doesn't even try to be objective. It is, in fact, kind of catty and gossipy (and also awesome--read it).

So, in addition to the history of the war being personal for him, he was writing Rise and Fall at least partially for people who had read Berlin Diary and probably wanted his opinion.

Not entirely relevant, but here's a quote from Shrirer's actual diary (not Berlin Diary):

"Berlin. May 22, 1935. Hitler made his long awaited, long promised speech in the ‘Reichstag’ last night on Foreign   
Affairs. It was by far the finest speech I have ever heard him make and, most agree, the finest speech he has ever 
made. I begin to be impressed by him. His detractors certainly underestimated the man, his mind, his skill, his   
ability."

The above is not in Berlin Diary. Shrirer edited it out, perhaps because it didn't fit with the narrative he wanted to tell, or perhaps because he was embarrassed to have liked Hitler. The point being, Shrirer was a man writing in the middle of the events and his view on it evolved massively over the years.

I think that Shrirer needs to be treated mostly as a primary source. I feel bad about that, given the massive amount of research and legitimate scholarship he did on the subject of Nazism, but even in Rise and Fall he falls back to some very base assumptions about his subjects. The afterword of one of his later editions is telling; he wrings his hands about a reunited Germany in a post-Cold War world, darkly commenting that the inherent nature of Germans might lead them to attempt to dominate Europe by force once more. This is known as the "Luther to Hitler" (or Sonderweg) and has been used to explain how the Holocaust happened, but in my opinion is overly simplistic and generalizes far too much a people that is not nearly as uniform or consistent as Shirer would imply.

Long story short, Shirer is heavily biased, to the point where it is difficult to take many of his conclusions about Nazism from a historical perspective.

/u/crow_hill and /u/A_BIG_MEAN_DOG

Can you guys please provide examples of Shrirer's bias as found in the work in question? I think we call understand why his work would be biased, but I think without a telling quote or example the argument just isn't convincing. I see both of you provided examples of his bias from outside the work, but surely there are examples from within the work if we should go so far as to consider it a primary source.