Joachim Fest
| Joachim Fest | |
|---|---|
(2004)
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| Born |
Joachim Clemens Fest 8 December 1926 Berlin, Germany |
| Died | 11 September 2006 (aged 79) Kronberg im Taunus, Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Occupation | historian |
| Known for | writings and commentary on Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany |
Joachim Clemens Fest (8 December 1926 – 11 September 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.
Fest was born in the Karlshorst locality of Berlin, Germany, the son of Johannes Fest, a conservative Roman Catholic and staunch anti-Nazi schoolteacher who was dismissed from his post when the Nazis came to power in 1933. In 1936, when Fest turned ten, his family refused to make him join the Hitler Youth, a step which could have had serious repercussions for the family, although membership did not become compulsory until 1939. As it was, Fest was expelled from his school, and then went to a Catholic boarding school in Freiburg im Breisgau in Baden, where he was able to avoid Hitler Youth service until he was eighteen.
The fact that his father, an "ordinary German", had understood the nature of the Nazi regime and had resisted it, coloured Fest's view of his fellow Germans for the rest of his life. He never accepted that Germans had not known what Hitler was doing or that they could not have resisted the Nazi regime.
In December 1944, when he turned 18, Fest decided to enlist in the Wehrmacht, mainly to avoid being conscripted into the Waffen-SS. His father opposed even this concession, saying that "one does not volunteer for Hitler's criminal war." His military service in World War II was brief and ended when he was made a prisoner of war in France. After the war ended, he studied law, history, sociology, German literature, and history of art at the University of Freiburg, in Frankfurt am Main and in Berlin.
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