The author of this book, Joachim Fest, is one of the better know of the German World War 2 historians so I was expecting a well researched and factual book. What I found was just that. Fest first takes us through a history of a number of the failed plots and people responsible before sending the second half of the book on the plot that actually got the closest with a bomb blast injuring Hitler. Fest describes the set up of the plot, what was to take place after the assassination in regards to taking control of the German government and the assumptions of what would happen with the war. We also get a chapter on what happened to the members of the plot once it failed.

Overall this is an interesting and well-constructed book. The information is laid out in an organized and easy to understand method. The writing is better then you expect from a historian, it flows through the story. The book is a good one volume accounting of the attempts on Hitler's life and, unless you are a true historian of the issues, is about all one needs to understand and appreciate it. If you are interested in World War 2 this is a good pick up.

One of the things my sons and I have in common is an interest in World War II. I am interested in the personalities, one son is interested in battle specifics, one in the political ramifications, and the other in the over all picture. But in the past, they were united "against" me in one specific. They said that Hitler's generals who plotted to kill Hitler in July, 1944, did not begin their plot until they saw that they were going to lose the war. However, after reading Fest's "Plotting Hitler's Death" my sons and I all understand better what really happened--and we are now of the same understanding of this resistance. In his book "Hitler," Fest was quite contemplative, apparently trying to make sense of Hitler, his accomplishments and failures, and Germany's responsibility in bringing him to power. This introspection is lacking in "Plotting Hitler's Death." Perhaps that is because those who tried to get rid of Hitler compensated for those who brought him to power. Perhaps it is simply because it is a different tale to be told-a tale that Fest tells well. He rehearses in clear detail the events leading up to that July 20 th, the anxious and feverish moments before the explosion, the confusion following it, and the terrifying roundup and executions that followed. Fest points out that there was not one unified group or movement of resistance against Hitler; rather there were numerous groups that acted separately and often held differing views. Fest focuses on the three groups who were the only ones able to develop a strategy that posed a genuine threat to the regime. He follows them in his usual thorough manner. But this does not keep him from characterizing the very human natures involved, their determination and their indecisiveness, their fears and their courage, their plan and their failure. "Plotting Hitler's Death" brings an important clarity to one dimension of a tormented and confused era.

Joachim Fest's account seems to be a biography of National Socialism. It it, he brings the main characters of the Nazi regime into light and shows that without them, the Third Reich would not have been the way we see it today. Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, Martin Bormann, Ernst Roehm, Franz von Papen, Alfred Rosenberg, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer, Hans Frank, Baldur von Schirach, the Officer Corps of the Third Reich, Intellectuals and National Socialism, the role of women in Nazi Germany, and finally Rudolf Hoess. Occasionally, the book seems to be a little overwhelming, yet it keeps you interested and the author presents the facts in an interesting fashion. Fest brings to light the fact that each individual played a role in the workings of this regime and without them would never have been what it appears to be today. The author also seems to stress that it was Hitler himself who was the only ! unique individual in the face of Nazism. He was the only one who was intelligent and who saw and carried out what he wanted to be a greater German Reich. All the rest were all just a bunch of stupid, mindless men that blindly followed their Fuehrer in an attempt to hide themselves as failures in life and achieve their ultimate goal, which was power, even if it would mean becoming the pieces in a huge machine of destruction that the world had never seen in its history. Auschwitz kommandant Rudolf Hoess was responsible for the millions that perished in his camp, yet he later claimed that he "also had a heart and was not evil." This statement alone is all the more terrifying because in a sense, it is the truth. I can practically guarantee that you will not be sorry for reading this book. Fest's portrait of National Socialism and Modern Totalitarianism is essential for anyone who is curious in the workings and men of this terrifying era in history.

The life story of Adolf Hitler is so compelling that it is hard to imagine a book about it ever being boring. Fest's account is thoroughly researched and and meticulously detailed and was a best sellerin West Germany before being published in the U.S. Though not as readabled as Robert Payne's superior "The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler," it still paints a fairly complete portrait of the man. If the book has any drawback, it is that it does not spend enough time on Hitler's pre-World War I activities. Payne much more thoroughly documents the humiliation and disappointment in Vienna that searled Hitler's soul and helped turn him into a monster. Nevertheless, Fest's "Hitler" remains one of the defining biographies of the 20th century's most evil figure.

Historian John Lukacs, who has just come out with "The Hitler of History", an analysis of Hitler's hundred or so important biographers, says Fest's bio is the "best long biography" of Adolph Hitler. Fest fleshes out the young Hitler in fascinating detail. Especially interesting is Fest's account of Hitler's political rise in Weimar Germany from being a member of a minute political party which held its meetings in the back of a beer hall to a dynamic leader of a strong poltical party by the end of the 1920s. Fest is very interpretive and analytical. Typical is his suggestion that Hitler was an artist mutated into a politician. For an American like myself, Fest is weak in explaining how the Nazi's, who never achieved more than fifty percent of an honest vote, was able to dominate the apparatus of government so thoroughly and so fast upon joining a governing coalition in 1933. It has never happened in America even if America has had pols with tyranical personality traits- Wilson, Johnson, Nixon, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and, to a small degree, FDR. If the amateur historian has time for only one biography of Adolph Hitler, this is the one to get.

I read this book for a graduate-level course on the history of Nazi Germany. Fest provides great insight into Hitler's development and personality, in his dry, somber German way. As a reference, it is undeniably one of the best out there on the subject. As a textbook, it requires coffee to finish reading. However, any student is perfectly capable of finishing and garnering great knowledge from this book.

I have to concede that at first I was highly skeptical that Fest, not just any German, but a German from the Nazi generation, would write an honest account of the German Resistance (I admit to harboring prejudices against Germans; my parents are survivors of the Nazi death camps). I expected Fest to exaggerate the motives of the Resistance, asserting that they were purely on humanitarian and moral grounds. After I read the book, however, I realized that I allowed my prejudices towards Germans get in the way. Fest makes no pretenses about their motives. They were wide-ranging, a few on humanitarian grounds, some because they saw they were losing the war, and for some it was the combination of several factors. It was an interesting and informative read. One criticism I do have is that there is a serious omission. Fest fails to tell us that many in the Resistance, even such notables as von Stauffenberg, Carl Goerdeler and Martin Niemoller sympathized with the Nazi view that there was a "Jewish problem" -- a problem that required a "solution." True, they were horrified when they learned that the Nazi "solution" to the "Jewish problem" was extermination; nonetheless they did harbor a fair amount of anti-semitism. As the brother of Claus von Stauffenberg testified: "In the sphere of internal politics, we had welcomed the basic tenets of National Socialism for the most part. . .The concept of race seemed sound and very promising. . ."; their objection was merely that its "implementation was exaggerated and carried too far." [the quote is taken from Goldhagen's book "Hitler's Willing Executioners."]

Joachim Fest's book should be required reading of all military and political leaders. All leaders must realize that the danger of losing one's morality often happens imperceptibly slow. "Plotting Hitler's Death" is a gripping account of how the German elite attempted on numerous occasions to topple Hitler. The irony of the assasination attempts is that the German Army,never trustful of Hitler, is the institution that comes closest to killing Hitler. At the same time, Mr. Fest protrays in exacting detail the internal conflict that these men experienced: loyalty due to the oath they swore but the realization that Hitler's regime was criminal.

This book is very well-written with a lot of interesting information about major and minor members of the German resistance. In addition to good story-telling, Fest provides interesting analyses of the reasons for their failures. It is a sad story, but the moral courage of many of those in the German resistance is inspiring.

This book was poorly translated and even in the original German, Fest is a heavy writer, turgid and hardly scintillating. This compilation is laden with errors, some major, some not, but the ultimate effect compromises the integrity of this book. It's absurd, for example, to make the statement that Hermann Goering's Nuremberg defense was anything but brilliant. One can loathe what Goering stood for and decry Nazism and its atrocities, but to deny that Goering stole the show at Nuremberg is historically inaccurate.

There are many better summations of the Nazi leadership than here. This is as dry as timber and about as edifying.

What you get in this book is pretty much what the title promises you. The author (J.Fest) plunges into a psycho-social analysis of the Nazi elite and attempts (succesufully) to shed some light on the people who moved the strings of Nazism in Germany.
Admittedly, the author's heavy writting style will turn off a certain group of viewers. While his intentions on decoding the personas that played key roles of Nazism are honest and straightforward, the atmosphere of the book is rather characterised by abusing descriptions and verbal exagerations.
Short biographies and psychological profiles are on offer here: Hitler, Goering, Hoess, Himmler, Hess, Ribbentrop, to name but a few.
However, you'd be mistaken (in my view anyway) to assume that this book will help you understand what brought this fascistic movement to power. Before even deciding whether you should read this or not, start by reading "The rise and fall of the third Reich" or other books pertaining on fascism and the masses. What is absent here are the german people themselves. Fascism does not rise because of a few psychotic personalities , and, as was proven in Germany's example, it very often complicits the people themselves to grab the power mechanisms.
But, if you are interested in blitz-biographies, and short "explanations" then the "Face of the third reich" will be a good choice. Then again, when it comes to the major players of Nazism there are far better individual biographies and character accounts out there (one of them by the author himself on Hitler).

Michael Burleigh's recent work "The Third Reich - A New History" was widely praised for its novel explanation of Nazism in the context of religion. Anyone who has read Joachim Fest's excellent book however will, among other things, know that this particular analysis was hardly new or innovative.
In form, The Face of the Third Reich is a psychological profile of both individual Nazi leaders and various sections of German society at the time. Through this approach though, the main causes of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis are explained.
Among other things, Fest lucidly illustrates the essential nihilism of the Nazi movement, whose ideology as such was based on the acquisition of power as as end rather than a means.
The vacuous adoration of and devotion to Hitler was in itself a cornerstone of Nazi philosophy, the Fuhrer cult providing the basis for Fest's religious analogies. He also discusses how initially vague assertions of Aryan superiority and Semitic evil were later focused after the seizure of power and developed and expanded on by Himmler and the SS.
The portraits of the main personalities are fascinating. Fest is invariably amazed by how such unremarkable individuals were able to attain such immense power and commit such extravagent atrocities. He shows how almost all were linked by a moral corruption and a cynical lust for power. The chapter on Rudolf Hoss, the commandant of Auschwitz is particularly arresting. Reading this, one is reminded of Orwell's 1984 and the ability of man to subjugate himself to authority and in turn to deceive himself into committing the most unfathomable crimes.
Fest is one of the foremost German authorities on Nazism and the book throughout is filled with an intellectual disgust and contempt of the regime. For anyone trying to make sense of that period, this book must be read.