Joachim Fest conveys the overwhelming despair of the final days of Adolph Hitler in Inside Hitler's Bunker. His use of eyewitness accounts provides a much clearer picture than previously seen of the Fuehrer’s chaotic end.
We all know Hitler was a megalomaniac, but it is interesting see the final manifestations of his psychoses. He vacillated between euphoria and rage and would, when judged by today’s standard, be termed bi-polar at least. His decisions, indecisions and revisions of decisions held the world hostage to his whims.
Fest makes the stunning point that Hitler did not want military victory -- for, when he came close to it, he shunned it. His goal was mass destruction on a grand scale. Hence, his “scorched earth” policy that left his supposedly beloved German people helplessly lost in the rubble of war.
Joachim Fest makes an intriguing (albeit grisly) subject come to life and makes Hitler’s Bunker required reading for all history buffs.