William L. Shirer Quote
But as dictator he had made the fatal mistake of seeking to make a martial, imperial Great Power of a country which lacked the industrial resources to become one and whose people, unlike the Germans, were too civilized, too sophisticated, too down to earth to be attracted by such false ambitions. The Italian people, at heart, had never, like the Germans, embraced fascism. They had merely suffered it, knowing that it was a passing phase, and Mussolini toward the end seems to have realized this.
William L. Shirer
But as dictator he had made the fatal mistake of seeking to make a martial, imperial Great Power of a country which lacked the industrial resources to become one and whose people, unlike the Germans, were too civilized, too sophisticated, too down to earth to be attracted by such false ambitions. The Italian people, at heart, had never, like the Germans, embraced fascism. They had merely suffered it, knowing that it was a passing phase, and Mussolini toward the end seems to have realized this.
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About William L. Shirer
As a young man just out of college, in 1925 Shirer was hired by the Chicago Tribune and later worked for the International News Service; he was the first reporter hired by Edward R. Murrow for what became a CBS radio team of journalists known as "Murrow's Boys". He became well known for his broadcasts from Berlin, from the rise of the Nazi dictatorship through the first year of World War II. Together with Murrow, on Sunday, March 13, 1938, he organized the first broadcast world news roundup, a format still followed by news broadcasts.
Shirer published 14 books besides The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, including Berlin Diary (published in 1941), The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969), several novels, and a three-volume autobiography, 20th Century Journey (1976 to 1990).