From Publishers Weekly
Books on Nazism, Hitler and the Third Reich always seem to find an eager audience, though it is the rare volume, such as Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners, that actually manages to spark interest beyond that specialized circle. And so, though this volume is blessed by careful research, by an author who is an expert in his field and by a gripping, tightly focused narrative, it hardly seems destined to appeal to anyone beyond diehard enthusiasts. The book details Hitler’s increasing mental and physical disintegration during the final days of WWII, when he was secreted underneath the battle-ravaged streets of Berlin with a last core of supporters. It ends with his suicide as Russian troops close in. Fest is the author of several previous books about Hitler and Nazism (The Face of the Third Reich; Speer; Hitler; etc.). His command of diaries, letters and other primary sources allows him to share such illuminating details as the following: "Hitler’s...facial features had become puffy, bloated. The thick, dark pouches under his eyes became more and more noticeable...cake crumbs stuck to the corners of his mouth." Photos. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
With Ian Kershaw, Fest is the most authoritative and reputable of the numerous biographers of the Nazi dictator, and he here continues the reconstruction, initiated by British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Last Days of Hitler (1946), of Hitler's suicide. Fest's may not be the last word, either, as he notes that historians have not yet accessed some Soviet interrogation records of Hitler's retinue. With such caveats, Fest narrates the sequence of the final Soviet offensive against Berlin, as reported to the bomb shelter where Hitler was holed up. Fest pauses in four chapters for interpretive reflection on the spectacle of apocalyptic destruction that was Berlin in April 1945. It had a demented theatricality, Fest argues, in which Hitler took some jubilation and even fulfillment. As his final act in history, willing the city's destruction was a characteristic if intensified outer spectacle of Hitler's inner pathologies. Fest connects his last ravings with the exaltation of hatred, conquest, and death of his preceding course. Well-rendered and judged, Fest's treatment will provoke thought about Nazidom's finale. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Joachim Fest is undoubtedly Germany's most distinguished historian of the Third Reich. That he is also that country's greatest living journalist only adds to the incomparable way in which he tells the story of the last fourteen days of Hitler's life. A lifetime of reflection on the Nazi period is distilled in a short, but elegantly written and incisive book that is sure to be among the classics on this subject." --Michael Burleigh, author of Third Reich: A New History
"Joachim Fest's Inside Hitler's Bunker is an up-to-date version of the old Trevor-Roper classic, The Last Days of Hitler, and in its own way, as much a classic." --Professor Norman Stone, author of The Eastern Front 1914-1917
"A riveting book." --Henry A. Kissinger
Book Description
Fest describes in riveting detail the final weeks of the war, from the desperate battles that raged night and day in the ruins of Berlin, fought by boys and old men, to the growing paranoia that marked Hitler’s mental state, to his suicide and the efforts of his loyal aides to destroy his body before the advancing Russian armies reached Berlin. Inside Hitler’s Bunker combines meticulous research with spellbinding storytelling and sheds light on events that, for those who survived them, were nothing less than the end of the world.
About the Author
Joachim Fest was born in Berlin in 1926. His previous books include The Face of the Third Reich; Hitler, his celebrated biography of Adolf Hitler; Plotting Hitler’s Death; and Speer: The Final Verdict, for which he has won numerous awards. A film adaptation of Inside Hitler’s Bunker, entitled The Downfall, has become a European blockbuster.
Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich FROM THE PUBLISHER
Inside Hitler's Bunker, by the preeminent historian Joachim Fest, is a searing portrayal of the last weeks of the Third Reich. Nothing in recent history comes close to the cataclysmic events that took place during the spring of 1945, when the fall of the Nazi regime was accompanied by destruction of unequaled magnitude. Fest, the author of a highly regarded biography of Hitler, shows in chilling detail that the devastation was not only the result of Allied attacks but also of Hitler's determination to leave behind nothing but a wasteland. Utterly unconcerned about the fate of Berlin's civilian population or of his soldiers, Hitler ordered that water and sewage systems, power plants, factories, roads, and railway lines throughout Germany be destroyed; he commanded his dwindling armies, consisting largely of boys and old men, to fight on long after they had run out of ammunition and defeat had become a certainty. From the desperate battles that raged night and day in the ruins of Berlin, to the growing paranoia that marked Hitler's mental state, to his suicide and the efforts of his loyal aides to destroy his body before the advancing Russian armies reached the bunker, Fest recounts these days in spellbinding prose, while exploring a question that's never been satisfactorily answered: Was Hitler's rise the inevitable outcome of German history, or was it a unique phenomenon? Inside Hitler's Bunker combines meticulous research with compelling storytelling and sheds light on events that, for those who survived them, were indeed nothing less than the end of the world.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
German journalist and historian Fest (Hitler: A Biography) has penned another admirable study of Nazi Germany that focuses on the final, cataclysmic days of Hitler's Third Reich in the F hrer bunker beneath Berlin. Four factual chapters chronicle events as reconstructed by reliable eyewitness reports and interviews. They are complemented by four reflective chapters that look at the "deeper meaning" behind those events. Reprising a theme from his Hitler biography, Fest describes his subject essentially as a supreme nihilist. The destruction in the final weeks of the war, engendered by Hitler's obstinate refusal to end the fighting long after defeat was certain, gave him, according to Fest, a "greater sense of satisfaction" than any of his early victories. The tragic devastation was further compounded and abetted by the "inculcated obsequiousness" of Hitler's entourage and leading generals, who did little or nothing to stop him. While there are no surprising revelations, Fest does synthesize a daunting body of research obtained from disparate, if sometimes dated, sources into an accessible narrative. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/03.]-Edward Metz, Combined Arms Research Lib., Ft. Leavenworth, KS Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A vivid reconstruction of the final weeks of Hitler's regime. In mid-April 1945, the Soviets launched an offensive against Berlin "with twenty armies, two and a half million soldiers, and more than forty thousand mortars and field guns"-an avenging force of an almost unimaginable size and scale. Hitler retreated into the Reich Chancellery, but not before warning that this "Asian onslaught" had to be stopped; if it were not, he warned, Germany's "old people, men, and children will be murdered, and women and girls will be forced to serve as barracks whores." Thus inspired, the Volksturm and Wehrmacht units charged with defending the city put up a stiff fight, even as Hitler continued to imagine that with Franklin Roosevelt's death the Western Allies would realize that their enemy was Russia and join Hitler's crusade. The fall of Vienna to the Soviets put an end to that vision, and Hitler-physically and mentally ill-waited out Marshal Zhukov's arrival while gorging himself on chocolate cake. An inglorious end, that, and German historian Fest (Speer: The Final Verdict, 2002, etc.) surprises with a number of unreported or overlooked details-such as a letter that Albert Speer had written to Hitler only a few weeks before, chiding him "for equating the existence of Germany with his own life span, describing this as an egocentricity unparalleled in history." For all that, Hitler shot his wife and then himself, leaving it to the handful of remaining stalwarts to burn their corpses. Fest confirms that widely published photographs of Hitler's corpse were a hoax, but adds the intriguing note that many of the theories concerning Hitler's supposed survival came straight from Josef Stalin: "Once he saidthat Hitler had escaped to Japan in a submarine; another time he mentioned Argentina; and later he said something about Franco's Spain." A well-considered slice of the Nazi era, and one with a happy ending.
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