Description:
This masterful biography by one of Germany's best known journalists was the leading nonfiction bestseller in Germany. Fest shows Hitler as the receptacle of the dreads and resentments of a shaken social order, gifted with an uncanny instinct for all that was hollow behind the appearance of power, at home and abroad. Though a warped human being, he was neither clown nor puppet, as many liked to think; Hitler appears here as an enormously astute politician, impressing and hypnotizing Germans and foreigners alike with the scope of his projects and the theatricality of their presentation. In the last analysis, however, Fest uncovers in Hitler a constantly destructive personality, which aimed at and achieved destruction on an unprecedented scale, not least because an insecure world gave him his opportunities.
Brief description:
Joachim C. Fest (1926-2006) was a highly acclaimed historian and journalist, and the author of several widely respected books on Nazi Germany, including The Face of the Third Reich, Plotting Hitler's Death, and Speer. He worked closely with Albert Speer as the editor of Inside the Third Reich and Spandau: The Secret Diaries.
Review Quotes:
"Amid the glut of Hitleriana, this is an exceptional biography. It provides a first-rate history of the Fuhrer's career and its psychological penetration is remarkable...An invaluable work--comparable to Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich."
-- "Kirkus Reviews"