The price for Johannes’ nonconformity was high. Only oneĭid the rest of them remained convinced, as did many of his Gentileįriends, by the power of high culture – represented by figures such asīeethoven, Goethe and Kant – and believed that the Nazi vulgarians would never prevail Provided they were not Nazis orĬommunists, he continued to maintain friendships with political activists,īoth Gentiles and Jews, and constantly issued warnings to his Jewishįriends that they should leave the country while they still could. He withstood the belligerence of the Hitler Youth when they demanded

Party, he was banned from other employment for the duration of the Third Views against Hitler’s “band of criminals” resulted in the loss of his jobĪ few months after Hitler acquired power. Keep “the totalitarian infection from affecting his family.” His outspoken Henceforth, his overriding concern was to Revolting Nazi period” reminding us that simple human decency is possibleįest senior was a head teacher, and an ardent Weimar Republican, who wasĭisgusted by his fellow conservatives who betrayed the country by Serving up a memorable tale of courage and stoic endurance of “the

Others do, not I.” The author pays tribute to his father (and mother) by The son, takes the title of his book from his devout Catholic, proudly Prussian,įather, whose inspiration is derived from St. Remarkable memoir that tracks the author’s life into young adulthood.

Who is, at least in the first half of the book, the central figure of this Maintained its moral bearings and did not succumb to the mass hysteriaĮngulfing the country? The answer starts with his uncompromising father, Personal work before his death in 2006, Not I: Memoirs of a German Childhood (Other Press, 2014),įest explores the reverse question: How was it possible that his family Obsessed with culture, descend into Nazi barbarity? In his final and most Throughout his professional career, first as a radio journalist and laterĪs an historian and as a biographer of Hitler and Albert Speer, Joachimįest was haunted by the question: How did Germany, a country almost – Johannes Fest, father of Joachim Fest, from Not I: Memoirs of a German Childhood

Hitler by Joachim Fest