Joachim Clemens Fest (December 8, 1926–September 11, 2006) was a German historian, journalist, critic and editor, is 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. He was a leading figure in debate among German historians about the Nazi period.He says: ”History is a fickle mistress and follows curious rules. She has a predilection for questions whose answers always leave something unexplained. She can be seduced by high drama, by splendour and mischief, by the rise and fall of powers and people. When Voltaire was asked why he had chosen to write about Charles XII, he replied that the king had been great, mysterious and mad; that was the stuff of history. On the other hand, history feels contempt for the unfortunate losers, for the causa victa of which Cato was so fond, rather than the causa victrix. History does not care about them; although the story of the defeated can often tell us more about a time than the story of those who seem to be the victors ». (full text).
Joachim Fest – Germany (December 8, 1926–September 11, 2006)
Laudatio: THE GERMAN historian and journalist Joachim C. Fest was a central figure in his country’s postwar debate about the origins and consequences of the Nazi catastrophe. His biography of Hitler, published in 1973, was a bestseller which stimulated national debate for many months. And his other writings, including assessments of the career of Albert Speer, the resistance to Hitler and life in the last days of the Third Reich in the Berlin bunker were also successful.
Fest was also active as a radio and TV journalist, a cultural critic especially during his two decades as co-publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and a vigorously conservative political commentator, who challenged all utopian thought from an instinctively sceptical point of view, and was especially critical of what he saw as a leftist establishment holding sway in German life. In recent weeks he had been one of the harshest critics of the novelist Günter Grass, a prominent figure on the Left, following his revelations of wartime service with the Waffen SS — a step Fest had taken pains to avoid. (full text).
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