The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940

In one of his outbursts, Hitler is described by diplomats as stating Czechoslovakia was not worth a pfennig.
What a contrast with the rushed billions from the IMS towards Ukraine, 74 years later, assuming the fourteen millions of native Russian speakers of 2014 Ukraine - not an insignificant minority, could be compared to the three millions Sudeten Germans.

In view of the current boot noises in the East and muscled debates over who controls the world's sources of energy, Shirer captivating account of failed diplomacy, military betrayals and vain hopes for peace is worth revisiting.
A mosaic of testimonies of how the world failed to stop the armed conquest of the West by a handful of dictators is offered to the reader's consideration. show more The Munich crisis, the Czechoslovakian deception, the Polish conquest and the Fall of France are given multifaceted view points through speeches, letters, memoranda, conversations, secret or not, some of which the author was a witness of during his stay in Europe.

Some eery incidents are chosen with acumen; how democracies chose to send "volunteers" during the Norwegian / Finnish attempts using the same method as Putin is likely to have used in Ukraine during the Summer of 2014; how the French High Command staff was preparing an invasion of the oil fields of Baku! during the 1939 Phoney war which would have ultimately conquered Moscow with the help of the Finns! Obsessed with anti-communism, individuals like Weygand who had observed Pilsudski's campaing in 1920 Poland, would cancel counter punches to the advancing tank columns of Rommel and Guderian, and would end up as collaborators of the Vichy regime.

Note that this plan was developed while Poland was expected to hold six months against the Wehrmacht while it was finished in 8 days. Such efforts gave German Generals ample time to then move the armored divisions and aviation from the East to the West with the disastrous end results we know.

For those who are desperate to find one common denominating factor to the Fall of France described by Shirer, I recommend reading again the eighth volume of the Adventures of Tintin: "Ottokar Sceptre" by HERGE. show less

Some amazing things in this history! I had no idea Shirer was a radio correspondent basically embedded with the Nazi army and thus present at many key events, such as outside Foch's rail car for the defeat signing and strolling into an abandoned Paris. (At that point cows gazed in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.) Peeling away the onion of sociological and political France pre-WWII the sudden defeat makes sense with the seeds planted there. Riddled with fascist support, even the far left was against fighting Hitler. "Die for Danzig?", they asked. Heck, it seems like the could have joined The Axis with a bit more of that. This basically briefly in the attacks on the (much hated) British as they tried to sink the French Fleet and prevent show more it from falling into German hands. The book concludes, before an Epilogue, with the signing away of the Republic to estable Petain's collaborationist, anti-Semite Vichy regime. show less

Impressive account of the turbulent history of France in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The weeks immediately before the outbreak of war in 1939 and of the invasion of France the following year are covered in great detail, and it makes for gripping, if exasperating reading. One is left with the impression that the Vichy era was a logical consequence to the social unrest of the 1930s rather than the aberration that it was for so long claimed to be. Shirer still packs a punch, even after nearly forty years.

William Shirer was an American newspaper correspondent during the 1930's. He was assigned to Hitler's Germany, and conducted himself well before his expulsion from that vantage point. Having left Berlin, Shirer was on hand for the end of the Third Republic and the beginning of the German occupation. A good source book particularly for colour, and the rhythm of the campaign. It is reliable on facts. I would read it in conjunction with Marc Bloch's book, and Churchill's description of the same time period.

Great- detailed breakdown of military and political fall of France.

1240. The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940, by William L. Shirer (7 Sep 1973) This book is not very well-written, and of course it has a depressing subject. I was too familiar with most of it to enjoy it. I had hoped the events of the 1930s with which I am not too familiar would be interesting but the treatment of them was rather superficial. Shirer is a newspaperman, not a historian.

definitive story of the Fall of France in 1940 from a war correspondant's perspective. a complete review of the European social and political world from the Peace of Versailles to the German lightning victory