One surprise for me is his late 1940 discussion of the T4 program to murder everyone who was in some way not sufficiently advanced to be part of the master race: the developmentally delayed; congenital defects; the incurable. Shirer mentioned that he heard numbers of 100,000 thrown around and thought this was likely too high. History has shown it was too low.
What i found interesting is that families of the dead ran paid death notices that in subtle ways hinted that something was not quite believable about these deaths. There were lots of these death notices in newspapers until the government stopped allowing them.
Shirer also indicates that while most Germans were generally supportive of the war at the start, sentiment was beginning to change by mid-1940. A jok he heard was that a plane crash killed Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels. "Who was saved?" "The German People."
He also recounts the wooden bombs story that i am sure you have heard, but in a different direction. As Shirer was told by a Luftwaffe officer, the Germans had constructed decoy aircraft made of wood. British Intelligence had enough local agents to drop wooden bombs.
This is one of those great stories that I really doubt no matter which air force did it. Why burn fuel and risk planes and air crews to do this? It is still a great story.
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