Hitler

Rating:
Summary: A fairly good biography
Review: The life story of Adolf Hitler is so compelling that it is hard to imagine a book about it ever being boring. Fest's account is thoroughly researched and and meticulously detailed and was a best sellerin West Germany before being published in the U.S. Though not as readabled as Robert Payne's superior "The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler," it still paints a fairly complete portrait of the man. If the book has any drawback, it is that it does not spend enough time on Hitler's pre-World War I activities. Payne much more thoroughly documents the humiliation and disappointment in Vienna that searled Hitler's soul and helped turn him into a monster. Nevertheless, Fest's "Hitler" remains one of the defining biographies of the 20th century's most evil figure.

Rating:
Summary: A fairly good biography
Review: The life story of Adolf Hitler is so compelling that it is hard to imagine a book about it ever being boring. Fest's account is thoroughly researched and and meticulously detailed and was a best sellerin West Germany before being published in the U.S. Though not as readabled as Robert Payne's superior "The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler," it still paints a fairly complete portrait of the man. If the book has any drawback, it is that it does not spend enough time on Hitler's pre-World War I activities. Payne much more thoroughly documents the humiliation and disappointment in Vienna that searled Hitler's soul and helped turn him into a monster. Nevertheless, Fest's "Hitler" remains one of the defining biographies of the 20th century's most evil figure.

Rating:
Summary: A biased, agenda driven representation of Nazi Germany
Review: This book is very long, weighing in at over 700 pages of stylistically arid small print. There is an enormous amount of research and factual history in this book which has unfortunately, I surmise, influenced the generally held reputation of this book. To evaluate this book, consider what the reader of 200 years from now might learn if this were the only book on this era that he/she were to read. 1. Nazi Germany was bursting at the gills with "Good Germans" all furiously hatching one plot or another to do away with Hitler, frustrated only by the arrogant and unforthcoming attitude of Western and Polish Governments. 2. The Jewish holocaust must have been a minor affair, because it merits only half a paragraph (in which the most parsimonious numbers of victims that I have ever seen are cited), while within the same chapter, 4 pages are devoted to the nobility of the Prussian Junkers as they accepted their punishments following the von Stauffenberg plot. 3. Pre WWII France was a nation of vengeful, Versailles-touting triumphalists who more than any other factor or people were responsible for Hitler's ascendancy. 4. "Hitler could not have destroyed Europe without the help of the rest of Europe". Only Germany, it seems, suffered economically in the 20s and 30s, only Germany had a hard time getting back on its feet after WWI, and only Germany had the bad luck to have difficult neighbors during that time. France is repeatedly represented as vengeful, shrill, bitter, and punitive, Poland is authoritarian, grasping and conniving. 5. Apart from the most odious members of the inner circle, who were far beyond the pale of any high-brow white-wash, not a single German is represented in this book as having compromised himself of herself.At every opportunity language is used to mollify or misrepresent events. Thus even Goebbels is not subjected to the humiliation of being reported as having killed his own chilren "The Goebbels family committed suicide".etc.etc. This is an infuriating, and ultimately evil book. Read it but beware the moulding and reshaping of fact.

Rating:
Summary: A biased, agenda driven representation of Nazi Germany
Review: This book is very long, weighing in at over 700 pages of stylistically arid small print. There is an enormous amount of research and factual history in this book which has unfortunately, I surmise, influenced the generally held reputation of this book. To evaluate this book, consider what the reader of 200 years from now might learn if this were the only book on this era that he/she were to read. 1. Nazi Germany was bursting at the gills with "Good Germans" all furiously hatching one plot or another to do away with Hitler, frustrated only by the arrogant and unforthcoming attitude of Western and Polish Governments. 2. The Jewish holocaust must have been a minor affair, because it merits only half a paragraph (in which the most parsimonious numbers of victims that I have ever seen are cited), while within the same chapter, 4 pages are devoted to the nobility of the Prussian Junkers as they accepted their punishments following the von Stauffenberg plot. 3. Pre WWII France was a nation of vengeful, Versailles-touting triumphalists who more than any other factor or people were responsible for Hitler's ascendancy. 4. "Hitler could not have destroyed Europe without the help of the rest of Europe". Only Germany, it seems, suffered economically in the 20s and 30s, only Germany had a hard time getting back on its feet after WWI, and only Germany had the bad luck to have difficult neighbors during that time. France is repeatedly represented as vengeful, shrill, bitter, and punitive, Poland is authoritarian, grasping and conniving. 5. Apart from the most odious members of the inner circle, who were far beyond the pale of any high-brow white-wash, not a single German is represented in this book as having compromised himself of herself.At every opportunity language is used to mollify or misrepresent events. Thus even Goebbels is not subjected to the humiliation of being reported as having killed his own chilren "The Goebbels family committed suicide".etc.etc. This is an infuriating, and ultimately evil book. Read it but beware the moulding and reshaping of fact.

Rating:
Summary: Probing the heart of evil
Review: This is a dense, thorough, anbd illuminating biography of a frightening and fascinating figure historian John Lukacs calls "the man of the century." I would be lying if I didn't say it's slow going; it's not a book for the faint of heart as Fest spends much of his time trying to explain the phenomenon of Hitler to a German audience. Was he an aberration? Was he an inevitable outcome of German culture? Those are the questions Fest tries to answer. Nevertheless, the book is full of original insights in Hitler's character that will linger long after the book is finished.

Rating:
Summary: A GREAT BIOGRAPHY OF HITLER
Review: This review is written by Mr. Richard Lee Knowles from St. Louis, MO, USA, who wanted to share his review of this book.
There is no doubt that "Hitler", by Mr. Joachim C. Fest, is the strongest pillar of facts, about the man, and is a monument of literary excellence. "Hitler" is a testament to one soldier's anvil will to not yield at any cost. Thanks to Mr. Fest the truth of history will be saved for the future. Mr. Fest (an ex-German soldier} makes clear that Hitler honored and memorialized the German soldier. Even though Mr. Fest lacks more information on Hitler in WWI, and of why he was awarded the "Iron Cross First Class", it is still the best book. You can find out why Hitler was awarded the "Iron Cross First Class" in the book, "The Arms of Krupp", by Mr. William Manchester on page 322. I have read "A Study in Tyranny" by Alan Bullock, and "On Borrowed Time" {How World War II Began) by Mr. Leonard Mosley, and a book of great and rare pictures of Hitler which is "Sieg Heil" (an illustrated history of Germany from Bismarck to Hitler) by Mr. Stefan Lorant. I have read many other books pertaining to Hitler, but to me this one is by far the best.

I read all about WWII, for my father, Mr. Elwood Knowles, Jr, was awarded "The Presidential Unit Citation" while serving on the destroyer "Nicholas" in the battle of Kula Gulf", near Kolombangara Island in the Solomon group against Japanese forces on July 5-6, 1943. That information can be found in the book, "United States Navy in World War II" by S.E. Smith, William Morrow and Company, Inc. New York 1966.

Rating:
Summary: A sin of omission
Review: While I am as impressed as anyone with Fest's outstanding literary achievement I do think one aspect of Hitler's life has been underemphasised not just by Fest but also by virtually all other biographers; ie the effect on his personality and outlook of four years in the trenches in WW I. In the post Vietnam era popular culture is familiar with the Rambo syndrome -'what you call hell he calls home'. As he readjusts to civilian life the Vietnam Vet gets flashbacks of things that happened during the conflict and these color his life from then on. Hitler was four years sleeping in dugouts under the ground, sharing miserable conditions, accustomed to a weekly tally of dead and wounded among comrades, risking life and limb daily. I think that four years is a long time and certainly long enough to permanently alter someone's life outlook from being sunny and optimistic to being dark and sinister.

Fest's chronology more or less treats this period as another period in Hitler's life and I think he would have done better to dwell a little longer thereupon.