约阿希姆·费斯特

约阿希姆·克莱门斯·费斯特（德语：Joachim Clemens Fest，1926年12月8日－2006年9月11日）是德国历史学家、记者、评论家和编辑，他同时也是德国对于纳粹时期最为重要的历史学家之一。其最著名的著​​作和公开评论主要是关于纳粹德国题材，其中又以讲述阿道夫·希特勒和亚伯特·史佩尔的传记、以及介绍德国抵抗运动的书籍闻名。

Joachim Clemens Fest (8 December 1926 – 11 September 2006) was a German historian, journalist, critic and editor who was best known for his writings and public commentary on Nazi Germany, including a biography of Adolf Hitler and books about Albert Speer and German resistance to Nazism. He was a leading figure in the debate among German historians about the Nazi era.

Early life and career

Fest was born in the Karlshorst locality of Berlin, 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 10, his family refused to make him join the Hitler Youth, a step that could have had serious repercussions for the family although membership became compulsory only in 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 18.

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 that concession by saying that "one does not volunteer for Hitler's criminal war". His military service in the Second World War was brief and ended when he surrendered in France. After the war, he studied law, history, sociology, German literature and art history at the University of Freiburg, in Frankfurt am Main and in Berlin.

After he had graduated, he started working for the American-run Berlin radio station RIAS (Radio in the American Sector). There, from 1954 to 1961, he was the editor in charge of contemporary history and was asked to present radio portraits of the main historical personalities who had influenced the course of German history from Otto von Bismarck to the Second World War, including leading figures of the Nazi regime such as Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels. The portraits were later published as his first book, The Face of the Third Reich: Portraits of the Nazi Leadership.

In 1961, Fest was appointed editor-in-chief of television for the North German broadcasting service Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) in which he was also responsible for the political television magazine Panorama.

Career in writing

Fest then embarked on his biography of Adolf Hitler, published in 1973. The first major biography of Hitler since that of Alan Bullock in 1952 and the first by a German writer, it appeared at a time when the younger generation of Germans was confronting the legacy of the Nazi period. It sparked controversy among German historians, because Fest, a political conservative, rejected the then dominant view that the causes of Hitler's rise to power had been largely economic. He instead believed that the Third Reich's rise to power was the result of millions of Germans turning a blind eye to Hitler or actively supporting him.

Fest explained Hitler's success in terms of what he called the "great fear" that had overcome the German middle classes, as a result not only of Bolshevism and First World War dislocation but also more broadly in response to rapid modernization, which had led to a romantic longing for a lost past. That led to resentment of other groups, especially Jews, which were seen as agents of modernity. It also made many Germans susceptible to a figure such as Hitler who could articulate their mood. "He was never only their leader, he was always their voice... the people, as if electrified, recognised themselves in him".

In 1977, Fest directed a documentary entitled Hitler: A Career. Fest's film, which aimed to explain why ordinary people in Germany loved Hitler, created some controversy among some critics such as the American historian Deborah Lipstadt, who wrote that by featuring extensive clips of Hitler from propaganda films and totally ignoring the Holocaust, Fest had engaged in the glorification of a murderer.