Customer Reviews
Solid account - By: I just had to write, 04 Jan 2008 
This publication is a solid account of those last days. The days when the Gross Deutches Reich, once spanning most of Europe, was not much bigger than the city of Berlin. Naturally it is becoming difficult to cover this important chapterin European history from a new angle. This said the author would appear to have managed it.
Very readable and gripping narrative - By: John Hopper, 01 Dec 2007 
An immensely readable short book about the fall of Hitler & the Third Reich. Fest's writing style is perfect for the non-specialist & his analysis of Hitler as a wholly new phenomenonin world historyin terms of sheer mania for destruction without purpose is clear & convincing.
Vivid historical narrative - By: G. L. Haggett, 09 Oct 2005 A vivid account of the events at the end of Hitler's life.
Margot Bettauer Dembo's excellent translation conveys Fest's straightforward style to great effect. Fest is very good on Hitler's need to destroy, but he also paints a not altogether unsympathetic picture of a manin physical, moral & mental decline, with a continuous tremor & a prodigious appetite for cake. The latter detail is typical of those throughout the book which make infamous characters more "human" for the general reader for whom this book is intended.
Fest is particularly good on the nature of history & its interpretation & on how difficult it can be to unravel the truth behind even recent events, as different interested parties seek to place a different spin on them.
As other reviewers have said, this book is probably a good starting point for those unfamiliar with the subject, rather than a reference work for the expert. As such, it represents a very worthy addition to the recent genre of vivid historical narrative.
A decent enough account - By: MR TC GRAHAM, 24 Apr 2005 
An interesting account if somewhat short.
Good on the facts, but over-analyzed - By: Niels Petter Pettersen, 21 Oct 2004 Joachim Fest has written a very solid account of what happenedin Hitler's bunker. He has reviewed the other books on the subject, &in this book, has summarized what they seem to agree on & also discusses the points that the historians argue about. And the sharp focus, only on what happenedin Hitler's bunker those last weeksin march 1945, makes this book, although only 180 pages long, able to go into some detail about what actually happened. This I think Fest manages do to very expertly, with good discussions about we know for a fact & what we probably will never know for sure (e.g. if Hitler shot himself or got somebony else to do it). Most of this part of the book is already reasonably well know -- Fest doesn's unearth any "new facts" -- but the discussion is very well managed, not boringin detail, but stillin depth. And if you're new to this subject, you'll probably learn some interesting facts, e.g. that Hitler married Eva Braun the day before they committed suicide together, so that she actually died as Eva Hitler.
Fest also manages to underbuild well the reason for picking out only the personal aspect of the story -- about Hitler's last days, not about the fall for Das Dritte Reich. It was not something I had thought that much about, but Fest shows very convincingly how the person Hitler was so closely related to the political entity, that it was impossible to image a contiued Nazi-Germany without Hitler, & this makes Hitler's personal fate so interesting. It is one of those moments where world events are clearly traceable to individual persons.
So Fest makes a good point when he underlines how closely Hitler the person is intertwined with the nationalsosialistic state, but I think the "reflecting" chapters, where he attempts to explain the phenomenon Hitler, are over the top. They are to psychologizing, read to much into Hitler's psychological traits & are hampered with over-generalizations about "the pre-civilized state of evil" & other quasi-philosphy.
In summary I think the actual history-bit of this book is very good, but since Fest has decided to make every other chapter either a history- or an analyzing chapter, & the analyzing chapters generally are not that good, I don't thinkt this book as a whole deserves a very good rating. It is easy to read, & the story it tells is fascinating, but it could have been even better. So buy for the history chapters, or if you're into history as psychological analysis.
