Joachim Fest
Joachim C. Fest (born December 8, 1926) is a German journalist and author, best known in English-speaking countries for his work with Albert Speer while writing his memoirs and his biography of Adolf Hitler.
Biography
Joachim Fest was born in Berlin. His father was opposed to the Nazis and did not allow him to join the Hitler Youth. Fest believes this contributed to his individualistic nature. Nevertheless, he was drafted and served in the Wehrmacht during World War II, which ended while he was held as a prisoner of war in France.
After he attended a Gymnasium in Berlin and in Freiburg, he studied law, history, sociology, German literature, and art history at Freiburg, Frankfurt am Main, and finally Berlin. There, he worked for the radio station (RIAS) from 1954 to 1961 as editor in charge of contemporary history. He then served as editor-in-chief of television for the NDR broadcasting service but resigned after a disagreement.
With his new-found independence, he researched and wrote his famous biography of Adolf Hitler. He edited the culture section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung until 1993. During his editorship of that newspaper, Fest became involved in the Historikerstreit, where he was generally identified with the conservative position.
Fest also served as the editorial aide for Albert Speer when the former Nazi official worked on his autobiography, Inside the Third Reich. After Speer's death and due to controversy over the reliability of the memoirs, Fest wrote an analysis on Speer's motives, Speer: The Final Verdict.
He is married and has two sons and a daughter; all his children work in publishing or the media.
The 2004 film Der Untergang (Downfall is the English-language title) was based in part on Fest's book Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich, along with the writings of Hitler's personal secretary Traudl Junge.
Works available in English
- Hitler (ISBN 0-15-602754-2)
- Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich (ISBN 0-374-13577-0)
- The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership (ISBN 0-306-80915-X)
- Speer: The Final Verdict (ISBN 0-15-100556-7)
- Plotting Hitler's Death: The Story of German Resistance (ISBN 0-8050-5648-3)