Joachim Fest > Quotes

“The need to magnify themselves, to bestir themselves, is characteristic of all illegitimates.”
― Joachim C. Fest, Hitler

“Propaganda must above all be popular, he argued; it must not be aimed toward the intelligentsia but “always and exclusively to the masses,” and its level “must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence among those it is addressed to.”
― Joachim C. Fest, Hitler

“The problems of the moment must never place the principle in doubt.”
― Joachim Fest

“And, just as he had wished, none of us had ever forgotten the maxim which, he remembered, he had bequeathed us. Indeed, the fine Latin maxim “Even if all others do—I do not!” belonged to every truly free life.”
― Joachim Fest, Not I: Memoirs of a German Childhood

“Neither blindness nor ignorance corrupts people and governments. They soon realize where the path they have taken is leading them. But there is an impulse within them, favored by their natures and reinforced by their habits, which they do not resist; it continues to propel them forward as long as they have a remnant of strength. He who overcomes himself is divine. Most see their ruin before their eyes; but they go on into it.1 Leopold von Ranke”
― Joachim Fest, Hitler

“The program Hitler outlined rejected everything: it was anticapitalistic and antiproletarian, revolutionary and restorational; it conjured up its dire visions of the future along with nostalgic pictures of the good old days.”
― Joachim Fest, Hitler

“The maxim had often helped him, at any rate, and even saved him from making some wrong decisions, because he had rarely made a mistake when he had followed his own judgment alone. He put a piece of paper in front of each of us and dictated: “Etiam si omnes—ego non! It’s from the Gospel According to St. Matthew,”
― Joachim Fest, Not I: Memoirs of a German Childhood

“Whether they represent us as clowns or criminals, the main thing is that they mention us, that they concern themselves with us again and again.”
― Joachim C. Fest, Hitler

“Socialism meant the responsibility of the whole for the individual, whereas “nationalism” was the devotion of the individual to the whole; thus the two elements could be combined in National Socialism. This prestidigitation allowed all interest groups to have their way and reduced the ideas to mere counters: capitalism found its true and ultimate fulfillment in Hitler’s socialism, whereas socialism was only attainable under the capitalistic economic system.”
― Joachim Fest, Hitler

“Hindenburg than to win a majority. As”
― Joachim Fest, Hitler

“The most obvious explanation for the success of National Socialism was that... it attracted opportunists”
― Joachim Fest, Not I: Memoirs of a German Childhood

“have to see or hear any people.”
― Joachim Fest, Not I: Memoirs of a German Childhood

“Battle”
― Joachim Fest, Hitler