WW2 - Rise and Fall of the third Reich (Shirer) significance and errors

by MazdaCapella

I'm currently reading (Audible listening, anyway) The Rise and Fall of the third Reich by William Shirer. What did he get right, and wrong about the times? His views on homosexuality are awful, but common for the era for example. So far he seems to place a lot of blame on Neville Chamberlain. No spoiler alert worries, I know how it ends, lol.

VoxpopuliVoxhumbug

While there is always more that can be said on a subject, you may appreciate the previous threads I've linked below, which contain excellent answers on the works of William Shirer by u/kieslowskifan and u/naturalog.

In general, it's helpful to remember that Shirer was a journalist, rather than a historian. Specifically, he was a journalist who spent many years living and working in Nazi Germany. Thus, he understood the the prevailing emotions and ideas at the time and place he was writing about, but he wasn't the best-situated to synthesize and interpret the "big picture" of the causes and consequences of Nazism. It is also worth noting that as a foreign journalist in an authoritarian country, Shirer often had access only to what the Nazis specifically wanted him to see, and he has been criticized for painting Nazi Germany as much more powerful than it was in reality, and the rise of Nazism as an inevitability.

Richard J Evans claims William Shirer's 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' to be "pretty much worthless." Is that true? If so, why?

Opinions on Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich?

Why is William Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" widely discredited by historians?