Das Gesicht des Dritten Reiches. Profile einer totalitären Herrschaft

by Joachim Fest

In these searing profiles the author dissects the lives of fifteen infamous Nazis—including Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Martin Bormann, Ernst Röhm, Hans Frank, Rudolph Höss, Albert Speer, and Hitler himself. He also analyzes the archetypal roles of the officer corps, intellectuals, and women. This work provides fresh perspectives into how dysfunctional psyches, personal ambitions, and ruthless rivalries impacted the creation and evolution of Hitler's Third Reich.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Germany, World War II, War, Holocaust

516 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Joachim Clemens Fest (1926-2006) was a German historian, journalist, critic and editor, best known for his writings and public commentary on Nazi Germany, including an important biography of Adolf Hitler and books about Albert Speer and the German Resistance to Nazism. He was a leading figure in the debate among German historians about the Nazi period.

Reviews

[Lewis Weinstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

UPDATE 5/19/20 ...

In the course of my research for the third book of my historical novel trilogy, I am reading about Albert Speer in Joachim Fest’s great book “The Face of the Third Reich.” Here are three excepts …

… Fest described Hitler's arrogant megalomania … the largest hall ever … a Stadium such as the world has never seen before … outdo the power and splendor of the pharaohs … all to project his own greatness … NOTE: this sort of self-serving grandeur is what Speer (who was an architect) helped Hitler create

… Speer saw Hitler, after the summer of 1944, blame the course of the war on the failure of the German people and never on himself … he understood Hitler's increasingly senseless prolongation of the war as an act of self-destruction … of Hitler himself and of Germany, which since it has lost the war, no longer deserved to exist ... Hitler now, in his great disappointment, hated his own people

… Speer wrote to Hitler in March of 1945 … the war is lost … the economy has broken down … you must dispel the illusion of fantasy which permeates your headquarters … Hitler refused to read the memorandum

These are, it seems to me, three direct parallels to the disastrous behavior of Donald Trump, as he sees his presidency collapsing.

***

UPDATE 5/11/20 ... read the section on Von Schirach, who was among other things the head of Hitler Youth. Fest's observations and analysis are spot on ... I'll be back to this book as I continue my research on my new novel

UPDATE 2/15/19 ... it's time for me to read the section on Heinrich Himmler ... up to this point in my novel, my character Berthold Becker has interacted mainly with Heydrich ... but now (June 1942) that Heydrich has been assassinated, Himmler assumes a larger role in Berthold's life

Among many others, Fest offers one view of Himmler that belies belief ... Himmler had a fierce aversion to the slaughtering of animals … cringing at the hunting of "poor creatures browsing on the edge of a wood, innocent, defenseless, unsuspecting" … Himmler told this to his Dr. Kersten ... I cannot reconcile his concern for poor animals with his efficient mass murder of millions of Jews ... I think I will make this astonishing comparison a subject of discussion between Walter Schellenberg and my fictional Berthold Becker soon after the funeral of Heydrich makes both of them Himmler's direct subordinates.

***

Joachim Fest has created fascinating, terrifying portraits of the major figures in the Nazi leadership.

I just read the chapter on Reinhardt Heydrich, described by Fest as ... the architect and brain behind the SS state ... a man free from humanitarian restraints ... with an insatiable greed for power ... and unencumbered by either ideologies or emotions.

Heydrich was the man who fashioned the Final Solution to murder all the Jews of Europe. Yet, according to Fest ... Heydrich lived under the continual constraint of his own Jewish ancestors … he tried to destroy all the evidence … but was unable to prevent enemies and rivals from obtaining documentary evidence.

Fest states that Heydrich went so far as to change the headstone of his grandmother's grave so that it said 'S. Heydrich' rather than 'Sarah Heydrich.'

According to Fest ... Himmler & Hitler were aware of Heydrich's Jewish 'problem' … they regarded Heydrich as gifted but dangerous … and felt their knowledge of his ancestry would keep him in line … he will obey blindly.

It is important to note that Fest's views on Heydrich's Jewish ancestry are not universally accepted by other historians.

Heydrich is introduced briefly in Book One of my soon-to-be-published novel A FLOOD OF EVIL, and it is my intent that he will be a major character in Book Two, which I have begun to research and outline.

[Maru Kun · Rating 5 out of 5]

By now most of us have read 1984, Brave New World, It Can't Happen Here or The Handmaid's Tale so we know in broad outline what our newly elected leaders have in store for us over the next couple of years.

However for people still curious about the direction in which things are heading there is also a range of non-fiction books to read. These will help you learn more about the character of our new leaders, the lies we should expect them to tell us, the precise modus operandi they will employ when undermining of our democratic institutions and the tricks by which those susceptible will be manipulated through propaganda and fear.

The better known of these books would include The Origins of Totalitarianism or The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 but there are plenty of other lesser known works that are also an invaluable resource, such as The Anatomy of Fascism or this book, ‘The Face of the Third Reich’.

‘The Face of the Third Reich’ differs from many histories of the Nazi era in important respects. It was written by a German journalist, Joachim Fest, relatively soon after the events and its focus is on the psychological profile and character of the senior Nazi leadership rather than being a narrative history of the period.

Straightaway we can see that the Nazi leaders have much in common with leaders in the regimes that are newly totalitarian (Russia, Turkey, Hungry) or in common with those which clearly aspire to a fascist future (the USA, the UK, Poland) or with those with active fascist political parties (the Netherlands, France, Austria etc. etc.).

Take this passage from the conclusion, for example. This says a lot of what you need to know about leaders in the Third Reich but I am sure could be cut and pasted by a busy history student of the future writing about Trump, the GOP or the other aspiring fascist leaders in the countries I mentioned:

"...The attempt to unravel the psychologies of the leaders of the Third Reich has laid bare, to an extent exceeding all expectation, virtually the whole range of human weaknesses, shortcomings and inadequacies. The chronicler of this epoch stands almost helpless before the task of relating so much incapacity, so much mediocrity and insignificance of character, intelligibly to their extraordinary results. What confronts him is never greatness, rarely an outstanding talent, and in hardly one case a great obsession with a single goal…[instead we see]…in the overwhelming majority of cases petty weaknesses, egotisms, idiosyncrasies and impulses of an altogether insignificant, even if totally uninhibited character..."

There are plenty of other passages with warnings and advice. The GOP’s attitude to Stephen Bannon’s stated intentions of triggering a clash of civilizations with Islam and starting war with China or Iran (or both) seems a lot like that of the Nazi leadership below:

"...[the senior Nazi leadership] did not even seem sworn to an idea, so that everything - violence, war and genocide - finally assumed the character of an error, a terrible misunderstanding, from whose consequences they wanted to shrink away with a shrug of the shoulders..."

The book has some advice for the military, who should think carefully about their exit strategy for every engagement:

"... acts of opportunism practiced at first hesitantly and with a bad conscience, but then ever more uninhibitedly, decisively established the path and position of military power holders in the Third Reich..."

And advice for the opposition

"...the totalitarian tendencies of a society are closely linked with political, social and economic conditions, but primarily they are a psychological problem. By trying to fight them exclusively on the political, social and economic plane the 'non-psychologists of Weimar' failed to appreciate their real structure..."

The best chapter in the book is the profile of Hoss, the Commandant of Auschwitz. It cannot be co-incidence that Fest left this chapter to the end just before his final summing up, probably with the intention of explaining how for so many ‘duty’ trumped human decency. The book is worth reading for this chapter alone. The following quote is a taster:

"...although in his statements [Rudolph Höss, Auschwitz Commandant] later admitted the criminal nature of his work, he seems never to have quite realised who he was and what his name meant in connection with Auschwitz. It is impossible to avoid the suspicion that even in admitting his guilt he was making the final effort to obey, this time the investigating officials and the court..."

The UK’s most respected historian of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, wrote the forward to this book and was asked in a recent interview whether he thought there were parallels between the Trump administration and the rise of the Nazis. I was expecting him to say that the parallels were overblown, but that is not what he said. As you can read here, he was more inclined to say that the parallels were strong with the exception of the street violence of the Freikorps and SA that characterized Hitler’s rise to power.

You may want to pick up this book and check off the actions or attitudes of the Nazi leadership against those of your favorite set of existing political leaders in a depressing but very enlightening game of ‘Fascist Bingo’. A US round would go something like this:

Goebbels’ disregard for the truth – Kelly Anne Conway – Bingo! Himmler’s belief in bizarre racial and historical theories – Steve Bannon – Bingo! Hans Frank’s denial of voting rights on racial grounds – Jeff Sessions – Bingo! Goebbels’ use of derogatory nicknames for opponents – Donald Trump – Bingo! Wilhelm Frick’s purging of the civil service – Scott Pruitt’s marking out of climate scientists as targets for future discrimination – Bingo! If these were all in a line I could call House.

Now you might think that my suggesting a round of Fascist Bingo is a frivolous idea in very bad taste. Well I honestly believe that if more people bought a copy of this book and used it to start a Fascist Bingo League with a few friends down at their local bar or pub that would be no bad thing for the future of liberal democracy.

And for that competitive edge, don’t forget that if you play by the ‘Istanbul Codified Rules’ physical resemblance to a fascist also lets you call Bingo!

I knew Stephen Miller reminded me of someone. Now I remember who.

[Jan-Maat]

Reading this book is an uncomfortable mixture of the interesting and the disturbing. It is a set of mini-biographies of various senior Nazi functionaries including Himmler, Hess, Frank, Speer, Bormann and Heydrich. By turn they come across as very odd, cynical or simply power-hungry. Each portrait is free-standing - they were originally designed as radio broadcasts - but certain themes recur including inevitably the role of the First World War and similar family circumstances.

Odd to the point of being disturbing anecdotes stick out, such as Bormann annotating the personal letters he received from his wife (particularly noting his approval of her idea that men must have two wives in order to make up for the lives lost in the war), or Hans Frank's boasting of how many people he had had shot in Poland, or the general air of Speer's love struck enchantment with the regime.

Fest lived through the Nazi period in Germany. The family were Catholic and his father's strict adherence to the Catholic Centre Party meant that he prevented the young Fest from joining the Hitler Youth or getting involved in Party activities. There is a sense that Fest looked in on the events of that period as something of an outsider and was aiming to explain what happened through the medium of biographies to himself as much as to his readers. I would recommend this highly for the general reader, certainly way above the likes of Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, in terms of providing insight into the regime and the mindsets of the leading figures.

[Jill H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably not my favorite book on the personalities of the major players in the Third Reich......but certainly an interesting look at the psychological profiles of the men who visited such horrors on the world. Each chapter is dedicated to a specific individual and dissects his actions and the possible reasons for them. I found the chapter on Martin Bormann the most informative since little is written about him and his fate is still being discussed sixty-seven years after he disappeared from the Fuehrer bunker as the Russians closed in. It is a good companion book to The Devil's Disciples: Hitler's Inner Circle by Anthony Read and an interesting read for the WWII buff.

[Winnie Thornton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely phenomenal. Discovered this book while googling Hitler’s inner circle for some story research. I didn’t just want to know WHAT they did (it’s easy to trot off the horrors of the Third Reich like a shopping list), I wanted to know WHY they did it. Personalities, motivations, home lives. What made them tick? What were they like when they walked into the room? Did they kiss their kids at night?

This book goes above and beyond. It doesn’t provide full biographies and you’ll be lost without a basic understand of the Gestapo, SS, and the like, but Joaquim Fest does a spectacular job analyzing individual evil: Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Göring, Heydrich, and more. Some were blindly obedient disciplinarians who would do any job as long as they could do it well, even if that job was exterminating thousands as efficiently as possible. Others were craven black holes of father hunger who latched onto Hitler for salvation. And others just ate power like candy.

One of the most shocking things is how the Third Reich was able to gain traction at all. Fest points out that the Reich, like all totalitarian systems, sure looked loyal and united, but was actual rife with envy, hatred, and poisonous power struggles that would make high school cat fights look noble in comparison. The leaders themselves were rarely good at their jobs. Backstabbing, sucking up to Hitler, avoiding bad news, and making stupid decisions took up most their time.

So when you find yourself enraged that Nazi Germany even happened, remember to be grateful that it was over so quickly. The Third Reich didn’t just murder innocent millions. It slit its own throat.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this book, probably, sometime in the 1980s I am sure it was before the fall of the Berlin Wall and I may have read it all or in parts subsequently, but now I've read it again I am as impressed as I was the first time. It really is a must read for anyone who wants to, or at least want to try to, understand the how/why of the Third Reich. Also any brief acquaintance with this or any serious book on the Reich will quickly banish any counterfactual versions of history were the Nazi's win, not because they were so evil, but because, as Gertrude Stein said in another context 'There is no there, there' and that can be seen as applying to the Reich as a whole in philosophical/doctrinal terms as well as the individual 'Old Fighters/Hitler's Associates/Nazi Strongmen'. Behind the Nazi's and Hitler there was nothing but the will to power. The utter vacuity of National Socialism is revealed in this book through the vacuousness of its power brokers and chief participants.

Time has not withered nor changing custom and perspectives (my apologies to Shakespeare) lessened the power and relevance of this book, indeed although written under the shadow of past (and outside of academia forgotten) historic debates like 'the special path of German history' and illusions that few historians, never mind most thinking people would any longer share, such as the 'unique evil' of the German people etc. the book is very relevant because what Fest sees and says about the shoddy crew around Hitler can so easily be applied and seen as relevant elsewhere.

One thing I can't help commenting on is the old fashioned way he introduces the disapproval that most of the Nazi 'Old Fighters' felt about Baldur von Schirach by quoting the 'gossip' about his 'all white bedroom' were as now-a-days it would be plainly stated that they thought him queer (and probably with good reason - in case anyone is in any confusion I use the word queer because honestly I believe gay is totally in appropriate considering the fate of so many homo0sexual men and women under the Nazis).

Wonderful excellent book whose insights are relevant still.

[Mikey B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent accounting of the personalities who made the Nazi era. There is an extensive analysis of Hitler and his cohorts. The main focus is on the rise to power. Hitler (and rightly so) is presented as the main focal point through-out. No Hitler – no rise of the Nazi Party, no World War II.

There is a comprehensive probing of Hitler’s speeches with their presentation and impact. The ideology of the Nazi regime is what Hitler desired it to be. As Mr. Fest points out, it could be many things to diverse groups of people. Its’ sway on the young, the conservatives, the intellectuals, the military is explained. All these groups saw what they wanted and Hitler took what he wanted from them. Hitler and the Nazi Party motivated the changes – these groups failed to comprehend the full impact much to the demise and sadness of Germany and subsequently the entire world. Hitler’s rise to power is very well outlined in Mr. Fest’s book.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

In his book, The Third Reich: A New History, Michael Burleigh states: “The Nazi leadership have become overly familiar, albeit as a galère of grotesques rather than as gods in ancient or pagan pantheons.” I suspect he was thinking of books like this one, although perhaps more of its many imitators, not of Fest’s original work. However, it is no stretch to call this a gallery of monsters, with some similarity to the room in a wax museum dedicated to (in)famous murderers and criminals. Written less than twenty years after the Second World War, it still works well to introduce a generation with no memory of those events to the major players on the losing side.

I would recommend it to beginners and the passingly curious, but not without some provisos. Fest is interested to use his portraits of the Nazi leadership as ideal types for many of the Germans who followed them, and this tends to mean blurring the details. Certainly, Ernst Röhm may have had many traits in common with other SA men, but he was also exceptional within that crowd, or else he would not have risen to a position of leadership. Also, Fest at this stage in his analysis falls prey to the common “nihilistic barbarian” thesis of the day, ignoring the influence that faith and ideology had in shaping National Socialism and portraying it as a naked craving for power for its own sake. In that sense, it should be taken with grains of salt, used by more serious historians only for its historiographic record of earlier approaches.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've never read anything on Hitler. To me he's always been a one-dimensional cardboard cutout of evil, basically the high chancellor in "V for Vendetta." But something about the current political situation had me curious about the psychological profiles of not just terrible leaders, but also the people around that leader who help prop him up and clear the way.

I wasn't disappointed. Hitler's political ability was "offset by his failure to distinguish between the possible and the impossible, his at first grandiose and later hysterical contempt for facts, and his inability to reconcile large-scale plans conceived in a flash with concrete situations and requirements. Admittedly, he had his staff to cope with the detailed work, which remained alien to him to the last." As for everyone else, it ran the gamut of the "whole range of human weaknesses, shortcomings and inadequacies."

Many other things don't cross over into our current political landscape of course - the society, the economics, individual skill sets of some of the top leaders including Hitler himself who was disciplined in a lot of ways. So I would never be hyperbolic and draw straight lines, as they really don't exist.

I ended up skimming some profiles but definitely recommend the last one on the common man, Rudolph Hoss, which is horrifying. Also, though I said I would never be hyperbolic, I couldn't help think of Stephen Miller when I read the chapter on Reinhard Heydrich.

[Jim Rayder · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this riveting unique book several years ago and reread it for the second time recently. It goes into much detail about the personalities of Team Hitler and depicts the Fuhrer himself as a drifting dreamy youth living on fancy Austrian pastry and crashing in flop houses wherein anti-Semitic/ anti-democratic pamphlets are commonplace, going so far to suggest that young Adolf may have first seen the swastika on a pamphlet cover. / I found the portraits of Goebbels and "party philosopher" Rosenberg most interesting. Hitler cleverly grabbing WWI flying ace Goering to offset "sour" Goebbels and mild-mannered creep Himmler clearly displays the importance of PR in fascist strategy. / Unlike modern fascist Trump, who fires whomever on a whim, Hitler relied on much input from his evil but hard-working circle. And Fest repeatedly shows that Nazism didn't come out of a clear blue sky, but from a group of like-minded misfits who shared certain warped ideas that had been kicking around the street for decades. But Fest gets also gets into the mediocrity of fascism, its penchant for expediency, its lack of imagination and humor...sound familiar?

[Lilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fest examines the lives of the men that were the Third Reich, from Hitler down to Höss. He also touches on the behavior of certain groups such as the officer corps or the women within Nazi Germany. With his great writing style, poetic and clear cut at the same time, Fest manages to craft a detailed group portrait full of ruthlessness, deceit, and intrigue. Certainly one of the best books ever written on the Third Reich.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

A extremely insightful and well researched book on the psychology of the Nazi hierarchy. As well as examining the psychology of the main players in the Third Reich he also writes, very eloquently, about the way in which Hitler was able to manipulate the masses and a interesting chapter on the role of women in Nazi Germany, recommended for any student of the Third Reich.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, I only finished chapter one. This is not a simple book for just anyone to read out of passing interest. It's an academic study of the psychology of the nazi leaders in context of their time and place.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a Hitler biography his cronies are usually not much more than cardboard characters, so you tend to get curious about some of them.

Fest's book is a criminal line-up of truly weird characters in an insightful study. It's slightly marred only by Fest's wooly, convoluted writing style and his predilection for over-psychologizing. He certainly doesn't spare his subjects. They're all either weak, unstable, evil, stupid, etc. and all completely subservient to their great idol Adolf Hitler. Albert Speer is the only one about whom Fest has anything remotely positive to say.

The first few chapters are about Hitler himself. The man who said he was ready to swear six false oaths a day to achieve his goals. His central idea was what Fest calls a vulgar Darwinism, seeing life as a merciless struggle for existence where the strong defeat the weak. So it's better to be ruthless than conscientious. The tough will defeat the sensitive and brute strength will triumph over moral values. His aim was to lure the workers away from the socialists and the class struggle and win them over for the national cause in a classless society. His talent was in whipping up the masses, whom he saw as his 'instrument', into a kind of 'suggestive paralysis, a 'receptive psychological state of fanatical devotion' in which thought was eliminated. He did this with opera-like stage-management and speeches using simple catchphrases and constant repetition. He said: 'The masses are like an animal that obeys instincts'.

His main cronies get one chapter each, and the last chapters have as their subjects certain types in the Nazi movement, like the aristocratic general and the intellectual.

To sum up some of the main culprits:

Hermann Goring, a glamorous, handsome World War I ace, power-hungry, who, once in power, went to seed in luxury and substance abuse. For a long time he was Hitler's favorite and second in command. Half-way through the war he had become a liability that Hitler would have liked to get rid of, but he was prevented from firing him by the fear of the bad publicity it would engender.

Joseph Goebbels, the only intellectual of the top Nazi's and a failed poet and writer. A cynical and masterful propagandist, who knew propaganda had nothing to do with truth. A true believer in Hitler's genius and a faithful disciple until the very end.

Reinhard Heydrich, a model Nazi, tall, blond and handsome. Ambitious and ruthless. But he had a semi-public secret: there were Jews in his ancestry. His arrogant carelessness got him assassinated.

Heinrich Himmler, a crackpot bureaucrat and slavish follower of Hitler. He was probably the weirdest of Hitler's inner clique, although he's often described as looking like a schoolmaster and having a colorless personality. Believer in occultism and race lore. Encouraging SS members to be totally merciless in killing, but didn't look the part at all. He was immensely powerful, and went a long way in turning the SS into a state within the state. Nobody, including Fest, knows what his qualiities and qualifications actually were that got him into that elevated position.

Martin Bormann was a bureaucrat behind the scenes, who had become very powerful by serving Hitler as a very efficient secretary. He purposefully kept out of the limelight and had no talent at all in making speeches or in leadership like most of the others.

[Alicia Sinclair]

This is a magnificent book, so compelling and urgent reading in today's similar climate.
These Nazi totems ranged from the cerebral to the thug. From the deviant to the pious, but all were angry utopian misfits who had grudges against " society" post war and sought utopia. All were godless, amoral atheists but some had Bavarian Catholic roots that were apparent in the pageantry and displays of idolatry towards Hitler as the personality cult, the embodiment of a national redeemer.
Others had deep green pagan mystical spirituality from a pot pourri of eastern and Nordic Gaia types of nature worship forest deities of recent creation or recollecting.
All were extremists and sought control of the streets and media ,using semi detached thugs that they grew up from, or could license in the greater Goods furtherance.
Their influence is most evident in the brilliance and aesthetic of Goebbels, Heydrich and Speer. Champion League football and funerals like Guscard D'Estaing or McCain show this.
You'll not see what BLM or removing Trump on a false prospectus leads too, unless you see the roots of utopian virtue as controlled and distributed by the annointed elites such as Thunberg and Sanders. Of course they're not Nazis, but the totalitarian impulse is identical.
" Forcing people to be free" has long been the godless cause. This time though, you need to wear a mask and riot so it's less racial hygiene that health.
Tomorrow need not belong to them. Read Fest and learn. This books archetypes are evident today in appeasers, false prophets, agitators, thugs and indifference born of no purpose meaning or sense of right and wrong. No God, no judgment....imagine all the people eh?
No longer need to.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating book and certainly an indispensable volume in any serious study of the Third Reich. The author provides a detailed psychologically oriented analysis of the notorious leaders of the Third Reich and particular subgroups (military, youth, professors, artists and authors, women).   The content assumes a level of familiarity with the events analyzed. Don't let this discourage you. Read on and, as needed, fill in background by referencing the online Britannica. Some readers may be discouraged by the complex prose and very long sentences containing multiple important, compound concepts. Re-read, read aloud, stick with it. There is a rhythm to the writing that is higher level than most of what we commonly see in writing (in the U.S.) today. There are abundant profound insights and analysis that are worthy of the extra effort required in reading. I found the  section on Albert Speer, particularly the introductory paragraphs, superb and thought-provoking; but that can be said of many other sections as well in this well-articulated volume on how and why the Third Reich and Hitler were able to do what they did. 

[Samuel Turcotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are looking for a series of mini-biographies on the most important Nazi leaders you will be sorely disappointed as I was. Each chapter is a meandering look at some theme of which each individual was in some way associated. The writing style is academic in tone and jam-packed with obscure words that at times makes comprehension difficult. The highlight of the book was the last chapter about Rudolph Hoss, the commandant of Auschwitz. That chapter was stellar!

[Nischlouss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joachim Fest nous dresse de façon remarquable une série de portraits des complices d'Hitler (Helfer en allemand, plutôt que maîtres dans la traduction française du titre). Sa capacité à articuler analyses psychologique, historique et sociologique nous permet de mieux comprendre comment des hommes aussi médiocres et instables ont pu entraîner tout un peuple, ainsi qu'une partie de l'humanité, dans un tel désastre. A lire absolument.

[Garry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although Fest provides multiple psychological profiles of Hitler and the leading members of the Nazi organization as well as group biographies of the followers of the Nazi movement which are insightful and obviously bring to mind the sick pseudo dictators and tyrants of our time, his writing style leaves much to be desired. It's ponderous, clunky, perhaps not well translated, but nevertheless frequently a challenge to push through as a reader.

[Jan Schaller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fest zeichnet anhand der Biografien von Nazigrößen sowie einiger wichtiger gesellschaftlicher Gruppen (z.B. Professoren) ein Psychogramm von Nazi-Deutschland. Gutes Buch, aber irgendwie hatte ich dann keine Lust mehr. Vielleicht sollte ich am ehesten noch den dritten Teil lesen, in dem es nicht mehr um Einzelpersonen geht, sondern bestimmte einflussreiche Berufsgruppen.

[Jeni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for a class. Engaging and thorough, although the author has a loquacious writing style that was difficult to absorb occasionally. If you're interested in the psychological traits that allowed a group of evil men to establish a ruling political party, you will like this book.

[Ed Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. An absorbing psychological examination of the Nazi upper ranks. A a vital history with insights for those among us who are concerned about the current rise of authoritarianism around the world.

[Quinn Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book diving in biographies of the most influential people in Nazi Germany.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tentatively this is a great read, but this is without me having read much of any other material on the subject.

I read this to understand how facism can overcome a nation, the prerequisites, the commonalities between societies today, how political situations can be precarious. If you do not read history and to know history is to read it, you will be doomed to repeat the same mistake.

It starts with the general beginnings of Hitler and the Nazi party up to the height of power and downfall which give insight to the mistakes people made and the party tactics then the rest of the book consists of character studies on key leadership roles in the party that give further insight into the various reactions from different parts of society had to the Nazis and their ideology from women, the intelligentsia and the original state military.

[David James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fest, Joachim C. The Face of the Third Reich

This insightful book into the characters of The Reich Chancellor, Adolph Hitler, and his closest National Socialist consorts goes some way to explaining the almost inexplicable power that bound its leaders. At the core of National Socialism lies the idea of racial superiority. As Fest explains in his chapter on Reinhard Heydrich. ‘It was directed at will against whatever groups those in power wished to destroy … beginning with the sterilization and euthanasia programmes and ending with the Final Solution.’

What I found most interesting in this somewhat out-of-date book is the variety of characters who bound themselves whole-heartedly to Hitler, at least until his downfall. From Goring, the infantile gormand who loved playing with toy soldiers to the cultured Goebels and the non-Aryan Heydrich all found cover for their insecurities in racism. The same went for Hess, Ribbentrop and Himmler. Although ‘The Moscow Pact struck a decisive blow against Alfred Rosenberg’s naïve loyalty to his Führer,’ only Albert Speer disputed Hitler’s invulnerability.

Although Rudolf Höss was the commandant of the extermination camp at Auschwitz he found he was ‘not suited to concentration camp sevice.’ But in his autobiography, this man whose father intended him for the priesthood bowed down to authority; ‘from my earliest youth I was brought up with a strong awareness of duty. In my parents’ house it was insisted that every task be exactly and conscientiously carried out.’ The thought of refusing an order never entered his head.

When the book was published in 1963, Germany was divided into zones and Fest shows considerable fear of the ‘totalitarian infection’ of the German people. But since then we have had gladnost and an enlarged European community. Nationalism in Europe is comparatively benign these days, but who knows for how long the sleeping giant will remain comatose?

[Cathal Joyce-Donnellan · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than likely the greatest book ever written about the Third Reich. Fest gives truly astounding insight into the psychologies of Hitler and his cronies. They are not quite portrayed as the sadistic racists history textbooks make them out to be, but rather as they really were: selfish, Machiavellian, power-hungry, imbecillic, pompous, and deeply insecure narcissists.

[Jennifer Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I was expecting short biographical sketches, but this is more psychological snapshots of the leading figures of Nazi Germany. Loved it. I do wish there had been a few photos included, though.

[Mollie Hogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating, well-researched look into the lives of the men who surrounded Hitler.

[Christian Tvede Steffensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gode beskrivelser af det tredje riges elite.

[Ragnheiður · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book many years ago - and still think that it is excellent