Customer Rating:  
Summary: Solid account
Comment: 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 chapter in European history from a new angle. This said the author would appear to have managed it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very readable and gripping narrative
Comment: An immensely readable short book about the fall of Hitler and the Third Reich. Fest's writing style is perfect for the non-specialist and his analysis of Hitler as a wholly new phenomenon in world history in terms of sheer mania for destruction without purpose is clear and convincing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Vivid historical narrative
Comment: 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 man in physical, moral and mental decline, with a continuous tremor and 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 and its interpretation and 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.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A decent enough account
Comment: An interesting account if somewhat short.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good on the facts, but over-analyzed
Comment: Joachim Fest has written a very solid account of what happened in Hitler's bunker. He has reviewed the other books on the subject, and in this book, has summarized what they seem to agree on and also discusses the points that the historians argue about. And the sharp focus, only on what happened in Hitler's bunker those last weeks in 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 and 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 boring in detail, but still in 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, and 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 and are hampered with over-generalizations about "the pre-civilized state of evil" and 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, and 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, and 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.
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