Hitler : eine Biographie

by Joachim Fest

Paperback, 1993

Status

Available

Call number

NQ 1800 F418

Collection

Publication

Frankfurt/M

Description

A bestseller in its original German edition and subsequently translated into more than a dozen languages, Joachim Fest's Hitler as become a classic portrait of a man, a nation, and an era. Fest tells and interprets the extraordinary story of a man's and a nation's rise from impotence to absolute power, as Germany and Hitler, from shared premises, entered into their covenant. He shows Hitler exploiting the resentments of the shaken, post-World War I social order and seeing through all that was hollow behind the appearance of power, at home and abroad. Fest reveals the singularly penetrating politician, hypnotizing Germans and outsiders alike with the scope of his projects and the theatricality of their presentation. Fest also, perhaps most importantly, brilliantly uncovers the destructive personality who aimed at and achieved devastation on an unprecedented scale. As history and as biography, this is a towering achievement, a compelling story told in a way only a German could tell it, "dispassionately, but from the inside." (Time)… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member JNSelko
The best Pre-Kershaw Hitler biography in English.
LibraryThing member fyi715
Excellent book -- very detailed look at the rise of Hilter. I have always wondered how a figure like Hilter could come to power in a modernized country such as Germany. This book gives a good look at how this takes place. Probably not the best book for WWII; however great look at Hilter's life and
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rise to power.
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LibraryThing member ted_newell
Heard this was one of the definitive general biographies. Reader gets a sense of the active politician dodging and weaving and often nearly losing in the lead up to the Beer Hall Putsch. History is contingent. What if. Here is a maker of history one wishes had not "succeeded" -- history is far from
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trends and forces, F. Braudel, the Annales school, and tectonic scale history notwithstanding.
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LibraryThing member markm2315
A great and insightful biography. We take history for granted, after all it did happen, but this story as fiction would be unbelievable. I had a peculiar surreal dream-like feeling during the part of the biography covering the late 20s - you know, it's time to wake up now! I haven't read a lot of
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Hitler biographies, but this one certainly seems to give a coherent and consistent psychological picture. It makes you wish you could have been present (and had a revolver), and it makes me think again about the US drone strikes. I was occasionally irritated by comments about Hitler's support in England or about how Hitler and the party weren't all that antisemitic in the early 30s (even though the author states that the SA would pass around collection cans labeled "For the destruction of the Jews"), but looking at the whole work, perhaps I am just overly sensitive.
The Kindle version has many typographical mistakes that look like OCR-type errors. Most disturbing, Alfred Jodl is always called Jodi.
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Language

Original publication date

1973

ISBN

3548330878 / 9783548330877
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