Review by Choice Review
Noted German historian Fest draws on a number of other works to explain what evidently happened inside Hitler's bunker at the end of WW II. In particular, he pays due homage to H.R. Trevor-Roper's 1947 book The Last Days of Hitler. There are no footnotes, so readers are at a loss to tell the sources of many of the details, but so many other scholars have offered similar material that this shortcoming is of less significance than if the book contained radically new material. What one does miss in this work by such a well-known and respected scholar, however, is some definitive treatment of the information pertaining to Hitler's remains that has been derived by others from the alleged new evidence released by the Russians since the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union. This alleged evidence, which the Russians have offered at least since the mid 1990s, needs to be evaluated by a scholar of Fest's stature. It is too bad he does not address the matter head-on, and instead presents an updated account of the chaos that surrounded the end of the Third Reich and the death of Adolf Hitler. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. D. A. Browder Austin Peay State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
With Ianershaw, 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 2004 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
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. (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Review by Library Journal Review
A venerable German historian on the last days of Hitler, here portrayed as intent on bringing Germany down with him. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
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 said that 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. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.