Background

William Lawrence Shirer was born on February 23, 1904, in Chicago, Illinois, United States to Seward Smith, an assistant U.S. district attorney, and Bessie Josephine (Tanner) Shirer.

Education

After finishing Washington High School in 1921, William Shirer enrolled in Coe College, graduating in 1925.

Career

William Shirer began his career in journalism as the editor of the Coe College Cosmos and as a sports reporter for the Cedar Rapids Republican. After graduating from the Coe Colledge he began working as a European correspondent for the Chicago Tribune from 1925 to 1932.

Shirer's tenure with the Tribune ended in the summer of 1932. He spent the following year in Spain before accepting a job with the Paris Herald in January 1934 but soon left to take a job as a foreign correspondent in the Berlin office of the Hearst International News Service. William Shirer lost that job on August 24, 1937, but shortly after that, he was hired by CBS as a radio newsman based in Berlin, experimenting with transatlantic programming.

William Shirer gained a national reputation reporting from Berlin during the period prior to World War II as well as covering the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in October 1945. After that, he returned to the United States to continue broadcasting for CBS. In 1947 William Shirer resigned from CBS.

William Shirer joined the Mutual Broadcasting System, where he worked from 1947 to 1949, but was blacklisted in 1950. The end of Shirer's radio career laid the foundation for a new career as a historian. During that period William Shirer survived through lecture tours on college campuses and book publications.

Achievements

• William L. Shirer became known for his broadcasts from Berlin, from the rise of the Nazi dictatorship through the first year of World War II (1940). With Murrow, he organized the first broadcast world news roundup, a format still followed by news broadcasts.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934–1941

    (Berlin Diary ("The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 193...)

    1941
  • The Sinking of the Bismarck

    (The Sinking of the Bismarck: The Deadly Hunt is a 1962 hi...)

    1962
  • The Nightmare Years (v. 2)

    (The Nightmare Years is a book by William L. Shirer, recou...)

    1984
  • The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

    (Two volume sets. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is ...)

    1960
  • 20th Century Journey

    (autobiography)

    1976
  • Gandhi: A Memoir 1980
  • The Challenge of Scandinavia 1955
  • Stranger Come Home 1954
  • The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940 1969

Membership

• Society for the Prevention of World War III

• Authors Guild

• Society of America Historians

• Council Foreign Relations

Connections

Shirer William Shirer married Theresa Stiberitz in 1931. The couple had two daughters, Eileen and Linda. William Shirer and his wife divorced in 1970. In 1972 he married Martha Pelton, whom he divorced in 1975. His third wife was Irina Lugovskaya.

Father:

Seward Smith Shirer

Mother:

Bessie Josephine (Tanner) Shirer

Spouse:

Theresa Stiberitz

divorced in 1970

Spouse:

Martha Pelton

divorced in 1975

Spouse:

Irina Lugovskaya

Daughter:

Eileen "Inga"

Daughter:

Linda

Friend:

Mahatma Gandhi

References

• Hudson, D., Bergman, M., & Horton, L. (Eds.) The biographical dictionary of Iowa
  2009