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Ich nicht. Erinnerungen an eine Kindheit und Jugend
Kaum ein anderer hat unser Verständnis vom Dritten Reich so sehr geprägt wie Joachim Fest. Seine Biographien zu Adolf Hitler und Albert Speer oder seine Annäherungen an die letzten Tage im Führerbunker erreichten weltweit ein Millionenpublikum - doch wie hat er selbst, der Zeitgeschichtler des Jahrgangs 1926, den Nationalsozialismus, den Krieg und das besiegte Deutschland erfahren? Mit dieser Autobiographie seiner Kindheit und Jugend gewährt Joachim Fest erstmals umfassenden Einblick in sein unmittelbares Erleben der dunklen Jahre.
Die Aufgabe, die ich mir gestellt habe, lautet Erinnerung. Die Mehrzahl der Erlebnisse und Erfahrungen meines Daseins sind, wie bei jedem, ins Vergessen zurückgefallen. Denn das Gedächtnis ist unausgesetzt dabei, das eine auszusondern, anderes an dessen Stelle zu rücken oder durch neue Einsichten zu überlagern. Der Prozeß hat kein Ende; blicke ich die lange Strecke zurück, drängt eine Flut von Bildern heran, alle wirr und zufällig. Im Augenblick des Geschehens verband sich kein Gedanke damit, und erst nach Jahren gelangte ich dazu, die verborgenen Wasserzeichen in den Lebenspapieren zu entdecken und womöglich zu lesen. (Aus dem ersten Kapitel des Buches)
Die Aufgabe, die ich mir gestellt habe, lautet Erinnerung. Die Mehrzahl der Erlebnisse und Erfahrungen meines Daseins sind, wie bei jedem, ins Vergessen zurückgefallen. Denn das Gedächtnis ist unausgesetzt dabei, das eine auszusondern, anderes an dessen Stelle zu rücken oder durch neue Einsichten zu überlagern. Der Prozeß hat kein Ende; blicke ich die lange Strecke zurück, drängt eine Flut von Bildern heran, alle wirr und zufällig. Im Augenblick des Geschehens verband sich kein Gedanke damit, und erst nach Jahren gelangte ich dazu, die verborgenen Wasserzeichen in den Lebenspapieren zu entdecken und womöglich zu lesen. (Aus dem ersten Kapitel des Buches)
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
69 people are currently reading
1126 people want to read
About the author
Joachim Fest
44 books87 followersJoachim Clemens Fest (1926-2006) was a German historian, journalist, critic and editor, 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 to Nazism. He was a leading figure in the debate among German historians about the Nazi period.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews
October 27, 2014
Halfway through this book, I would have rated it with three stars. The continual focus on the family’s insatiable appetite for German literature, music, and art, not to mention the author’s passion for the Italian Renaissance, can feel overwhelming (and humbling) to a reader less well-versed in those subjects.
As the story evolves, Fest makes clear that this intellectual grounding allowed his family to form a united front and navigate, defiantly, the Hitler years. These cultivated people, and many of their friends, saw the impending implosion of their culture and country, yet chose to remain, not comprehending how other Germans could cede a rich history to the demands of a “gang of thugs.”
In the final chapters, Fest simply, yet movingly, presents the inalterable changes the war brought upon his family. This is what pulled the book together for me, changing my rating from a three-star to a four-star. I borrowed this book from the library; I will now purchase it, to read at least once again, this time giving more attention to the intricate, articulate culture that shaped not only this family, but other Germans who also went down with their country, confirmed in their beliefs that “we are not little people” and that Hitler’s “band of criminals” would not amount to much.
As the story evolves, Fest makes clear that this intellectual grounding allowed his family to form a united front and navigate, defiantly, the Hitler years. These cultivated people, and many of their friends, saw the impending implosion of their culture and country, yet chose to remain, not comprehending how other Germans could cede a rich history to the demands of a “gang of thugs.”
In the final chapters, Fest simply, yet movingly, presents the inalterable changes the war brought upon his family. This is what pulled the book together for me, changing my rating from a three-star to a four-star. I borrowed this book from the library; I will now purchase it, to read at least once again, this time giving more attention to the intricate, articulate culture that shaped not only this family, but other Germans who also went down with their country, confirmed in their beliefs that “we are not little people” and that Hitler’s “band of criminals” would not amount to much.
April 9, 2014
I wanted to like this book more than I did. I'll read just about anything concerning those brave Germans who stood up to Hitler. There is much to commend this book and I would certainly say it's worth reading. But it's scope is very narrow. Fest grew up in a home full of intellectual fervour. There is much discussion - too much - about literature and music. The point being made were that these were highly educated people who were also anti-Nazis. But there were anti-Nazis who were not so-called intellectuals and there were also many men of letters and the arts who were pro-Nazis. So at some point I simply got bored with hearing about how Mozart was a genius. However, Fest does a wonderful job of showing the pressure his family was under because of his father's bold anti-Nazi stand. It took a toll on Fest's mother in particular and those descriptions alone make the book valuable for getting a sense of life in Germany when you were not in step with the thugs and monsters. I think after all this book could have easily been culled to shift the focus from music and literature to more of the daily experiences of seeing Nazism everywhere. Let's say this. At one point in the book I would have given it two stars. Later it was up to almost five. So I settled on three.
November 9, 2017
Although many reviewers found Fest's constant references to lesser-known German authors and musicians off-putting, this didn't really bother me. I think that the arts and humanities were so much at the core of the Fest brothers' childhoods, that not mentioning them would have gutted the book and the crux of its thesis for me.
And what exactly is Fest's thesis? Why does a family refuse to buy into the personality cult of the Fuhrer and subsequent domination by the Nazis of German civic life for a dozen crucial years? How does a family go on with their daily life, school, church, living through laughs and squabbles with their neighbors? Why do these sons, who idolize their disfavored father, who lost his teaching career when he scoffed at The Party and what it stood for, instead take their moral guidance from him and the classicists of German culture: Schiller, Goethe, Mozart, Kant and so on?
The thesis is right there. Perhaps it is better to ignore the flavor-of-the-day when it comes to new ideas, and stick to the roots of what you've learned, the roots of what your culture and ancestors have held dear for centuries. It was because of the family's intellectual rigor, its sons' ability to read difficult texts, discuss, and digest them that helped Joachim and his brothers maintain the high ground when so many others at the time took the apparent easy path, consenting to and often participating in a dictatorship.
It is not that any of the boys became members of the resistance, or plotted to overthrow Hitler, or actively and deliberately undermined the regime. The Fests were not at the level of the Bonhoeffers or the von Stauffenbergs, but simply folks who stuck to their principles without giving them away for the sake of comfort and safety. It was the little things, the small acts of defiance such as not attending Hitler Youth, not joining the Nazi Party, not buying into the prevailing anti-Semitism, that enabled them to come out of the war, not wholly unscathed, but morally and ethically intact.
Overall the book is an intriguing, intimate look at the daily life of an average family who did their best to get by in the incredibly trying times Nazism brought to Germany and the world.
And what exactly is Fest's thesis? Why does a family refuse to buy into the personality cult of the Fuhrer and subsequent domination by the Nazis of German civic life for a dozen crucial years? How does a family go on with their daily life, school, church, living through laughs and squabbles with their neighbors? Why do these sons, who idolize their disfavored father, who lost his teaching career when he scoffed at The Party and what it stood for, instead take their moral guidance from him and the classicists of German culture: Schiller, Goethe, Mozart, Kant and so on?
The thesis is right there. Perhaps it is better to ignore the flavor-of-the-day when it comes to new ideas, and stick to the roots of what you've learned, the roots of what your culture and ancestors have held dear for centuries. It was because of the family's intellectual rigor, its sons' ability to read difficult texts, discuss, and digest them that helped Joachim and his brothers maintain the high ground when so many others at the time took the apparent easy path, consenting to and often participating in a dictatorship.
It is not that any of the boys became members of the resistance, or plotted to overthrow Hitler, or actively and deliberately undermined the regime. The Fests were not at the level of the Bonhoeffers or the von Stauffenbergs, but simply folks who stuck to their principles without giving them away for the sake of comfort and safety. It was the little things, the small acts of defiance such as not attending Hitler Youth, not joining the Nazi Party, not buying into the prevailing anti-Semitism, that enabled them to come out of the war, not wholly unscathed, but morally and ethically intact.
Overall the book is an intriguing, intimate look at the daily life of an average family who did their best to get by in the incredibly trying times Nazism brought to Germany and the world.
December 26, 2018
Joachim Fest is considered to be one of the most prominent German historians and biographers, and his memoir “Not I” is a perfect example of why. He captures events and people with effortless precision and weaves a fascinating tale of the Fest family in their silent struggle against the Nazi regime. His prose is descriptive and to the point; the familiar events (such as the burning of the Reichstag) are presented through a personal experience, which makes them even more real and fascinating, and history truly comes alive as Fest continues his recollection of his teenage years and the worsening of his family’s situation.
Johannes Fest - the father - was a passionate antifascist and preferred losing his job as a school headmaster to aligning his political views with the new Party and its leader, Hitler. All three young sons, with which Fest Senior was quite open about his views, basically grew up on his principles and eventually shared his views and attitude, refusing to join the Hitlerjugend and constantly getting in trouble for their typical Berliners’ defiance and sarcasm. Not only the Nazi regime, but the war which followed touched the entire family, and Fest’s is a truly fascinating account which should be on any school’s curriculum, in my opinion.
The only criticism I have is that the author sometimes pays a bit too much attention to literature and music (sometimes book descriptions and their analysis and influence on the author take up entire paragraphs and even pages) but at the same time I appreciate that those were Fest’s passions and his need to include them into his memoir.
Gripping and very well-written, “Not I” is a perfect choice for anyone who’s interested in German history and how the Nazi Party policies affected regular Germans, who refused to support the Party. Highly recommended!
Johannes Fest - the father - was a passionate antifascist and preferred losing his job as a school headmaster to aligning his political views with the new Party and its leader, Hitler. All three young sons, with which Fest Senior was quite open about his views, basically grew up on his principles and eventually shared his views and attitude, refusing to join the Hitlerjugend and constantly getting in trouble for their typical Berliners’ defiance and sarcasm. Not only the Nazi regime, but the war which followed touched the entire family, and Fest’s is a truly fascinating account which should be on any school’s curriculum, in my opinion.
The only criticism I have is that the author sometimes pays a bit too much attention to literature and music (sometimes book descriptions and their analysis and influence on the author take up entire paragraphs and even pages) but at the same time I appreciate that those were Fest’s passions and his need to include them into his memoir.
Gripping and very well-written, “Not I” is a perfect choice for anyone who’s interested in German history and how the Nazi Party policies affected regular Germans, who refused to support the Party. Highly recommended!
March 14, 2014
This book starts quietly and builds to a powerful finish. I've read a fair amount about World War II and the rise of Hitler, but never something quite like this memoir: Told from the point of view of someone who was barely fighting age by the time the war ended, whose father was a staunch opponent of all that happened and paid a huge price for it. This is a small, personal, first-hand account, written by someone who I guess in some sense had "a good war," winding up on the Western front near the end. But there's a lot to think about and insight that added to all I've learned from other reading.
There is also an awful lot of recitation of poems, books and plays read, music heard and discussed. If you (like me) have only a cursory acquaintance with German literature, much will slide right past. The sheer volume of consumption and passion for it seems to be a real source of strength for Fest and many of his relatives and friends, who obsess about Goethe or Schiller or Mozart or Beethoven the way some of us do about "House of Cards" or "Game of Thrones." But Fest also shows that many intellectual, educated Germans, smug about the cultural tradition they treasured, simply couldn't grasp the real threat Hitler and the Nazis posed until far too late to stop them.
Here's the author, talking about his father: "one of the most shocking things for him had been to realize that it was completely unpredictable how a neighbor, colleague or even a friend might behave when it came to moral decisions." Reading it, it does seem, somewhat reassuringly, unimaginable that the same sort of political descent into hell could take place in any of today's democracies - but then, it seemed unimaginable to many Germans in the 1930s.
A fascinating document. (Also very well translated and a pleasure to read.)
There is also an awful lot of recitation of poems, books and plays read, music heard and discussed. If you (like me) have only a cursory acquaintance with German literature, much will slide right past. The sheer volume of consumption and passion for it seems to be a real source of strength for Fest and many of his relatives and friends, who obsess about Goethe or Schiller or Mozart or Beethoven the way some of us do about "House of Cards" or "Game of Thrones." But Fest also shows that many intellectual, educated Germans, smug about the cultural tradition they treasured, simply couldn't grasp the real threat Hitler and the Nazis posed until far too late to stop them.
Here's the author, talking about his father: "one of the most shocking things for him had been to realize that it was completely unpredictable how a neighbor, colleague or even a friend might behave when it came to moral decisions." Reading it, it does seem, somewhat reassuringly, unimaginable that the same sort of political descent into hell could take place in any of today's democracies - but then, it seemed unimaginable to many Germans in the 1930s.
A fascinating document. (Also very well translated and a pleasure to read.)
May 21, 2014
Fascinating, well written book; I was sorry when it ended. Fest writes of his childhood, when his father, a devout Catholic and a teacher, decided resolutely that he could not in any way collaborate with the Nazis. He lost his job and was not able to work again I until after the War. He was not part of any Resistance movement in Germany; there was barely any. However he maintained his friendships with Jews and, until no longer possible, was involved in supplying money and papers to people trying to leave Germany. One very interesting part of the story was his effort to learn about the extermination camps. All the while Fest (the book is written by his son, a historian) and his wife raised five children, trying to both protect them but also to be honest in terrifying times.
February 24, 2014
Not bad, not great. The author seems to spend far more time discussing what books/plays/operas he likes than the day-to-day life of an anti-Nazi family during Hitler's reign. And the portrait of his Catholic father helping his Jewish friends and badmouthing Nazis seems almost too heroic to be believed.
August 21, 2020
This book was an unexpected pleasure. Picked up on a bargain table at one of my favourite bookshops, I bought it having read a few of Fest's histories of Nazi Germany over the years and thought it looked like it might be an interesting book to read. It certainly is that.
Much of this memoir is taken up with the story of Fest's father, Johannes, and how he reacts to and deals with the Nazi takeover and life after 1933. Johannes was a member of the Zentrum Party, which was the party of the Catholics in the Weimar Republic. He was also a committed Catholic and Republican. He was one of the minority who saw through Hitler from the first, and stuck to his principles. Doing this meant he lost his job as a principal of a school in Berlin, and was not allowed to hold down any other job. He was regularly harassed by the Gestapo, and shunned by most of his neighbours, as well as his former work colleagues.
While the Fest's upper middle-class life was slowly falling apart, Joachim and his siblings were slowly brought to understand how one operates in a tyranny - trust no-one, be very careful what you say, and who you say it to. Joachim and his brothers are no longer welcome at their Berlin Gymnasium, and are sent to a Catholic boarding school in Freiburg just before the war breaks out. While their family moved from having an entire floor of an apartment building, with a maid, to sharing bedrooms and wearing patched clothes, Fest writes of a basically happy childhood - children everywhere make the best of what they've got, and often don't realise how bad things really are, even though young Joachim has an idea of what is happening. While he is learning how to navigate being anti-Nazi in a Nazi world, he is also learning what he can of German music and literature, with the help of many of his father's friends.
Quite a few of those friends were Jewish, and Joachim learns much from Dr. Meyer, a widower who becomes increasingly depressed as time goes on. Johannes is very clear-eyed about the danger to his Jewish friends and constantly urges them to leave Germany. Only a few do so, and the rest are lost to history, swallowed in the Holocaust.
Fest moves from school to a Flak unit, then the Labour Corps, and finally into the fighting around Remagen, where he is captured by the Americans and spends a few years in camps, from which he unsuccessfully tries to escape. Eventually he is freed, and reaches Berlin again, and those of his family that remain (his elder brother died on the Eastern Front and his Uncle and Aunt were killed by Russian troops). The final, shorter part of the memoir relates his move into journalism and finally to writing about the Third Reich, which he initially looked down on as a subject, thinking that he'd much rather write about his true interest of the Italian Renaissance.
This memoir, while describing what happened to Fest, is also a memoir of his developing mind, and of the difficulties of the times in which he grew up. As the son of a member of the educated middle-class, Fest was exposed at an early age to the greats of German literature and art, and much of this book is taken up with his discovery of, and reaction to, Mozart, Beethoven Schubert, Rilke, Goethe and other staples of the German canon. After the war, while incarcerated, he is exposed to American literature and begins to see that his cultural education was blinkered by his upbringing much more than he thought.
Fest's life, and more particularly his father's life, is evidence of the price that must be paid to be true to principles, and how most are unable or unwilling to pay that price and don't understand those that do. On several occasions Johannes could have retrieved his old life back, but didn't. He fought for what was right in his own way, but it brought him nothing but trouble and pain. He came back from Koningsberg and Russian captivity after the war a changed man. Fest too came back a different man from the war. However, their principles had not changed. They had resisted Nazism as best they could.
Not I describes very well how life is lived under totalitarianism. Fest is amazed at the freedom and casualness shown by his American captors, which helps him to realize just how much life is circumscribed when living under a totalitarian system, where you cannot say what you think or do what you want to do. Fest writes a little of how this came about - that the Germans are a law-abiding people rather than a people concerned with justice, and that National Socialism attracted opportunists - people hopped on the bandwagon when it was good for them to do so, and hopped off again when it wasn't - which is Fest's theory for why, after the war, no-one was a Nazi, or had ever been.
This book has also been treated well by the people that turned it into something I could read - translated well, the text is very readable (in fact gripping in many places) and contains plenty of footnotes to explain Fest's cultural references. Being published in the US also means that the paper and binding are to a much higher standard than the usual British and Australian rubbish we get Down Under - made to last, rather than to make money.
This was a book that I was going to read and pass on, but it's now a keeper. If you are interested in German history, it's one to read.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
Much of this memoir is taken up with the story of Fest's father, Johannes, and how he reacts to and deals with the Nazi takeover and life after 1933. Johannes was a member of the Zentrum Party, which was the party of the Catholics in the Weimar Republic. He was also a committed Catholic and Republican. He was one of the minority who saw through Hitler from the first, and stuck to his principles. Doing this meant he lost his job as a principal of a school in Berlin, and was not allowed to hold down any other job. He was regularly harassed by the Gestapo, and shunned by most of his neighbours, as well as his former work colleagues.
While the Fest's upper middle-class life was slowly falling apart, Joachim and his siblings were slowly brought to understand how one operates in a tyranny - trust no-one, be very careful what you say, and who you say it to. Joachim and his brothers are no longer welcome at their Berlin Gymnasium, and are sent to a Catholic boarding school in Freiburg just before the war breaks out. While their family moved from having an entire floor of an apartment building, with a maid, to sharing bedrooms and wearing patched clothes, Fest writes of a basically happy childhood - children everywhere make the best of what they've got, and often don't realise how bad things really are, even though young Joachim has an idea of what is happening. While he is learning how to navigate being anti-Nazi in a Nazi world, he is also learning what he can of German music and literature, with the help of many of his father's friends.
Quite a few of those friends were Jewish, and Joachim learns much from Dr. Meyer, a widower who becomes increasingly depressed as time goes on. Johannes is very clear-eyed about the danger to his Jewish friends and constantly urges them to leave Germany. Only a few do so, and the rest are lost to history, swallowed in the Holocaust.
Fest moves from school to a Flak unit, then the Labour Corps, and finally into the fighting around Remagen, where he is captured by the Americans and spends a few years in camps, from which he unsuccessfully tries to escape. Eventually he is freed, and reaches Berlin again, and those of his family that remain (his elder brother died on the Eastern Front and his Uncle and Aunt were killed by Russian troops). The final, shorter part of the memoir relates his move into journalism and finally to writing about the Third Reich, which he initially looked down on as a subject, thinking that he'd much rather write about his true interest of the Italian Renaissance.
This memoir, while describing what happened to Fest, is also a memoir of his developing mind, and of the difficulties of the times in which he grew up. As the son of a member of the educated middle-class, Fest was exposed at an early age to the greats of German literature and art, and much of this book is taken up with his discovery of, and reaction to, Mozart, Beethoven Schubert, Rilke, Goethe and other staples of the German canon. After the war, while incarcerated, he is exposed to American literature and begins to see that his cultural education was blinkered by his upbringing much more than he thought.
Fest's life, and more particularly his father's life, is evidence of the price that must be paid to be true to principles, and how most are unable or unwilling to pay that price and don't understand those that do. On several occasions Johannes could have retrieved his old life back, but didn't. He fought for what was right in his own way, but it brought him nothing but trouble and pain. He came back from Koningsberg and Russian captivity after the war a changed man. Fest too came back a different man from the war. However, their principles had not changed. They had resisted Nazism as best they could.
Not I describes very well how life is lived under totalitarianism. Fest is amazed at the freedom and casualness shown by his American captors, which helps him to realize just how much life is circumscribed when living under a totalitarian system, where you cannot say what you think or do what you want to do. Fest writes a little of how this came about - that the Germans are a law-abiding people rather than a people concerned with justice, and that National Socialism attracted opportunists - people hopped on the bandwagon when it was good for them to do so, and hopped off again when it wasn't - which is Fest's theory for why, after the war, no-one was a Nazi, or had ever been.
This book has also been treated well by the people that turned it into something I could read - translated well, the text is very readable (in fact gripping in many places) and contains plenty of footnotes to explain Fest's cultural references. Being published in the US also means that the paper and binding are to a much higher standard than the usual British and Australian rubbish we get Down Under - made to last, rather than to make money.
This was a book that I was going to read and pass on, but it's now a keeper. If you are interested in German history, it's one to read.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
August 13, 2022
Lesenswert, wenn man wissen will, wie ein Jugendlicher die NS-Zeit erlebt hat. Allerdings ist der Autor kein Durchschnittstyp und seine Familie erst recht nicht. Erstaunlich, was der Autor schon in seiner Jugend alles an Literatur verschlungen hat.
November 16, 2023
Μια μαρτυρία κατά του Ναζισμου απο τα μέσα της Γερμανίας , ή πως μεγάλωνε ένας άνθρωπος σε μια αστική οικογένεια που αντιστεκόταν στον Χιτλερ . Έχει μια μελαγχολία αλλά είναι ένα διαφορετικό βιβλίο για την Γερμανία του 30-45 που προβληματίζει ..
July 29, 2024
autobiografie eines berühmten ns-historikers, der unter hitler groß wurde.
hab irgendwie ein buch über widerstand oder ns-terror erwartet, stattdessen fast 400 seiten intellektuelles geplänkel und namedropping, latenter sexismus (keine einzige frau wird zur echten figur) ständige gleichsetzung von nationalsozialismus und kommunismus und permanente berufung auf das gute, deutsche bürgertum.
da ich vielleicht falsche erwartungen hatte, und das buch immerhin darstellt, wie intellektuelle es durch die nazizeit geschafft haben, ohne schuldig zu werden (allerdings auch ohne laut zu werden), was mir neu war, zwei sterne.
ich weiß nicht, wie ich das zu ende geschafft habe, muss aber zugeben, dass ich 40 seiten gesprungen habe.
hab irgendwie ein buch über widerstand oder ns-terror erwartet, stattdessen fast 400 seiten intellektuelles geplänkel und namedropping, latenter sexismus (keine einzige frau wird zur echten figur) ständige gleichsetzung von nationalsozialismus und kommunismus und permanente berufung auf das gute, deutsche bürgertum.
da ich vielleicht falsche erwartungen hatte, und das buch immerhin darstellt, wie intellektuelle es durch die nazizeit geschafft haben, ohne schuldig zu werden (allerdings auch ohne laut zu werden), was mir neu war, zwei sterne.
ich weiß nicht, wie ich das zu ende geschafft habe, muss aber zugeben, dass ich 40 seiten gesprungen habe.
January 5, 2018
Historian and author Joachim Fest has written a memoir about his boyhood and life up til the age of about 24. The book was published, in cooperation with an interpreter and an historian, in 2006, the year of his death, at the age of 80. His memoir gives a different side of life in Nazi Germany in the 1930's and 1940's. His parents - his father in particular - were against Hitler and lived a circumscribed life under the Nazis.
The Fest family were members of the Catholic upper-middle class. Fest's father - Johannes - was a teacher and school administrator who lost his job and was prohibited from holding a paying job because he would not cooperate with the new Nazi regime. The family lived in a suburb of Berlin called Karlshorst. Fest was one of five children - 3 boys and 2 girls - and survived in those years with the help of family money and assistance. Most of the family survived the war and the Russian occupation of Berlin at war's end and were reunited.
Okay, what did the Fest family do to show their displeasure with the regime? The Fests were not Communists or liberals. Johannes (Hans) Fest was a member of the Zentrum (Center) Party and was active in positions in the Weimar Republic. This perhaps put him into an interesting category of non-Nazis in Germany. Besides losing his job and being serially harassed by Nazi officials, their lives never seemed to be in danger during the era. No one was hauled off by the government to camps and the Fest sons were not forced to join any Hitler-Youth organisations. They had Jewish friends who "disappeared" and who they tried to help out, but it seems the family was basically left alone. The sons were sent to a Catholic boarding school near Freiburg during the war and the two older saw service in the last months of the war, after being drafted from their studies. I read nothing about any of the family doing anti-Hitler work, other than Joachim carving some caricatures of Hitler in a class desk in Berlin.
Joachim Fest went on to become one of post-war Germany's most noted historian and biographers. He was always quick to point out that it was impossible for most Germans not have known what was going on by the Nazis, both inside Germany and in the occupied lands. He says his family heard stories and reports about what was going on in the occupied eastern countries, particularly against the Jewish population. What does he say in his memoir? He alludes to various friends who told the family about such happenings but what does his family do, besides live quietly under Nazi rule and try not to draw too much attention to themselves? But, and this is a big "but", what did MOST German Christians do during the Nazi era? How many really were protesting or conducting any form of sabotage? How many were putting their own lives at risk to protest? Not many, not many...
Fest was an excellent writer and his memoir is interesting. I wish he could have made a better connection between his family and their survival with what that said about the Nazi state.
The Fest family were members of the Catholic upper-middle class. Fest's father - Johannes - was a teacher and school administrator who lost his job and was prohibited from holding a paying job because he would not cooperate with the new Nazi regime. The family lived in a suburb of Berlin called Karlshorst. Fest was one of five children - 3 boys and 2 girls - and survived in those years with the help of family money and assistance. Most of the family survived the war and the Russian occupation of Berlin at war's end and were reunited.
Okay, what did the Fest family do to show their displeasure with the regime? The Fests were not Communists or liberals. Johannes (Hans) Fest was a member of the Zentrum (Center) Party and was active in positions in the Weimar Republic. This perhaps put him into an interesting category of non-Nazis in Germany. Besides losing his job and being serially harassed by Nazi officials, their lives never seemed to be in danger during the era. No one was hauled off by the government to camps and the Fest sons were not forced to join any Hitler-Youth organisations. They had Jewish friends who "disappeared" and who they tried to help out, but it seems the family was basically left alone. The sons were sent to a Catholic boarding school near Freiburg during the war and the two older saw service in the last months of the war, after being drafted from their studies. I read nothing about any of the family doing anti-Hitler work, other than Joachim carving some caricatures of Hitler in a class desk in Berlin.
Joachim Fest went on to become one of post-war Germany's most noted historian and biographers. He was always quick to point out that it was impossible for most Germans not have known what was going on by the Nazis, both inside Germany and in the occupied lands. He says his family heard stories and reports about what was going on in the occupied eastern countries, particularly against the Jewish population. What does he say in his memoir? He alludes to various friends who told the family about such happenings but what does his family do, besides live quietly under Nazi rule and try not to draw too much attention to themselves? But, and this is a big "but", what did MOST German Christians do during the Nazi era? How many really were protesting or conducting any form of sabotage? How many were putting their own lives at risk to protest? Not many, not many...
Fest was an excellent writer and his memoir is interesting. I wish he could have made a better connection between his family and their survival with what that said about the Nazi state.
June 26, 2014
I loved this book. It's basically a somewhat crotchety-sounding old conservative German intellectual telling the story of his childhood under Nazism. His parents, highly intellectual and very Catholic (and, in his mother's case anyway, very upper class) deeply opposed Hitler and everything he stood for, so the story has two dimensions. One is Fest's own intellectual loves and growth during the era--he even says that he threw himself into intellectual pursuits as fervently as he did because of the war and the fear that all of that (literature, art, music) would be destroyed if Hitler won. The other is the tale of his parents' refusal to give in to the Nazis. His father is a...well, somewhat crotchety conservative German intellectual, but most importantly, he's a Catholic and a Kantian. He would do what was right, no matter what the consequences...so he refused to ever compromise with the Nazis and lost his job and right to work almost immediately after they came into power. Fest's mother was more willing to lie to the Nazis and play the game (so she could feed the kids!), but her husband would have none of it. And so it went, implacable anti-fascists trying to survive the Nazi years. I found Herbert Arnold's footnotes quite useful in providing additional context, not just in terms of Berlin geography and background on people that Fest mentions, but also, and more importantly, regarding the German class structure, the role of the German intellectual class in the early 20th century, and post-war German intellectual/political debates around dealing with the Nazi years. Those notes allow you both to enjoy Fest's story, and to put it in some larger context.
January 29, 2020
Ωραίο σε γενικές γραμμές, υποθέτω γιατί πάντα είναι ενδιαφέρουσα μια διήγηση σε πρώτο πρόσωπο που αφορά μια τόσο σημαντική ιστορική περίοδο, αλλά αρκετά κακογραμμένο. Γενικά μοιάζει περισσότερο με προφορικό λόγο, δεν έχει πολύ ειρμό και δομή. Η αξία του έγκειται στο ότι αναδεικνύει την ύπαρξη Γερμανών που ήταν αντίθετοι με το Ναζισμό και υπέφεραν γι αυτό, δηλαδή ένας καλός τρόπος αντιμετώπισης στερεοτύπων του τύπου «οι Γερμανοί είναι όλοι φασίστες» κλπ. Επίσης, κάνει φοβερή εντύπωση η απίστευτη ενασχόληση του συγγραφέα, της οικογένειας και του κοινωνικού του περίγυρου με τη λογοτεχνία και τη μουσική, σε σημείο που αναρωτιέται κανείς εάν πράγματι ήταν τόσο καλλιεργημένοι οι μεσοαστοί Γερμανοί του ‘30 ή απλά πρόκειται για μια εξαίρεση.
August 10, 2014
A very moving memoir about a loving, courageous, anti-Nazi, German family who maintained their integrity and values through the turbulent years of the Hitler era. Another reminder of the senselessness and de-humanizing effects of war.
September 8, 2023
This was a pretty dense read - not because of the political matter but for all of the cultural references that seem to form its backbone. It’s the kind of intellectual endeavour that has fallen out of fashion (if it was ever in fashion in the UK), the very personification of the word erudite and at the same time beautifully written and fascinating and rather dry. The endless cultural references, whilst being key to Fest’s character and world view can also be a bit exhausting and alienating - although I guess if you have grown up with the German literary (and classical musical) canon this would be less of an issue. In short, I’m glad I’ve read it, I gained plenty from it, but it felt almost a bit more academic than I expected or wanted and I frequently found myself bored. Again - not necessarily the fault of the book.
August 10, 2021
Ein eindrucksvolles Zeugnis deutschen Bürgertums.
May 16, 2025
Basically a dispassionate list of people met. plays viewed, and books read. Reminded me of my own life, which is probably not a good thing.
September 7, 2025
interesting pov of WW2 and definitely some valuable life lessons to be learned from reading. this is the kind of book that makes an impression on you, you’re still thinking about it months after reading.
October 28, 2021
From our 21st c. perch, we access the war primarily through the fireworks of those closest to the explosion. In comparison, the Fests' experiences at first appear so peripheral to be almost insignificant.
The author records his father's own frustrations, in retrospect, at the helplessness of his situation:
"Apart from a helping out in a small way a few times, he hadn't been able to do anything; his main concern had been to keep the totalitarian infection from affecting his family and one or two friends. When it came to the Nazis, as he had often observed, even the passing thought of giving in had been enough and a person was already lost."
Johannes Fest and his family triumphed in *mental* resistance. As Joachim observes after the war, while thousands of their neighbors were ashamedly attempting to de-Nazify themselves, make excuses for their collaboration, and rebuild their reputations and what was left of their very character, the Fests could say "We had the dubious advantage of remaining exactly who we had always been, and so of once again being the odd ones out."
This mental resistance, while not as dramatic as blowing up trains or distributing dissident pamphlets, comprised a victory of soul. When it was so easy to apostatize, when so many opportunities presented themselves, the challenge of the slow, white martyrdom of the Fests became greater.
Never before have I understood this pressure until now, when I too am excluded from society due to my refusal to betray my principles and swallow the zeitgeist regime of lies. I will be fired from my job for refusing to be injected with an experimental substance.
NOT caving in, NOT becoming one of them…that is a victory!
Acknowledging reality – that is a victory!
What is truth? Joachim notes Pilate’s question as his motivation to record his memoir…And, in his case, what is truth?
For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world but loses his soul? Man’s primary responsibility is to preserve his own soul, and then as many others as possible. During times of totalitarian insanity and persecution, just hanging on to your soul, and those of your family, constitute a victory. This was clearly Johannes Fest’s motivation. I’ve often wondered about this verse in regards to heroic resistance fighters who still lost their souls – what was the point? Ludwig Beck almost killed Hitler, and then almost killed himself. His last act of the will was to attempt suicide. What does it profit a man to *save* the whole known world but lose his own soul? Wouldn’t it be better to just save your soul? Even – especially – as they try to wrest it from you?
The Fests provide the blueprint to this latter course. However, and this struck me, the family did not seem particularly devout. They knew Catholicism as a first thing, and clearly practiced, but Joachim speaks only of his father’s enduring, obdurate “principles” in secular terms. Of course, we only hear Joachim’s recollections…it seems plausible that his parents and perhaps siblings were more devout than he, and of course they maintain a longterm friendship with a priest, but he does not mention ANY of the family receiving Last Rites ☹
Of course, at the back of my mind the entire time was the “banality of good” of the Quangels of Hans Fallada's 'Every Man Dies Alone.' More particularly, the [paraphrased] line from the introduction: they could have given no more than their lives. When simply listening to foreign radio was a crime punishable by death, the Fests' daily acts of resistance risked their lives, and therefore were meritorious.
The impact in this world was not nothing. Yet how do these acts echo in eternity…was it all for nought?
Other notes:
I LOVED Fest’s literary references!
Flesh out the idea that two of the brothers fought, and one died, as Nazis. Yet not until it was the only option left: “one does not volunteer for Hitler’s criminal war!” [Johannes]
The author records his father's own frustrations, in retrospect, at the helplessness of his situation:
"Apart from a helping out in a small way a few times, he hadn't been able to do anything; his main concern had been to keep the totalitarian infection from affecting his family and one or two friends. When it came to the Nazis, as he had often observed, even the passing thought of giving in had been enough and a person was already lost."
Johannes Fest and his family triumphed in *mental* resistance. As Joachim observes after the war, while thousands of their neighbors were ashamedly attempting to de-Nazify themselves, make excuses for their collaboration, and rebuild their reputations and what was left of their very character, the Fests could say "We had the dubious advantage of remaining exactly who we had always been, and so of once again being the odd ones out."
This mental resistance, while not as dramatic as blowing up trains or distributing dissident pamphlets, comprised a victory of soul. When it was so easy to apostatize, when so many opportunities presented themselves, the challenge of the slow, white martyrdom of the Fests became greater.
Never before have I understood this pressure until now, when I too am excluded from society due to my refusal to betray my principles and swallow the zeitgeist regime of lies. I will be fired from my job for refusing to be injected with an experimental substance.
NOT caving in, NOT becoming one of them…that is a victory!
Acknowledging reality – that is a victory!
What is truth? Joachim notes Pilate’s question as his motivation to record his memoir…And, in his case, what is truth?
For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world but loses his soul? Man’s primary responsibility is to preserve his own soul, and then as many others as possible. During times of totalitarian insanity and persecution, just hanging on to your soul, and those of your family, constitute a victory. This was clearly Johannes Fest’s motivation. I’ve often wondered about this verse in regards to heroic resistance fighters who still lost their souls – what was the point? Ludwig Beck almost killed Hitler, and then almost killed himself. His last act of the will was to attempt suicide. What does it profit a man to *save* the whole known world but lose his own soul? Wouldn’t it be better to just save your soul? Even – especially – as they try to wrest it from you?
The Fests provide the blueprint to this latter course. However, and this struck me, the family did not seem particularly devout. They knew Catholicism as a first thing, and clearly practiced, but Joachim speaks only of his father’s enduring, obdurate “principles” in secular terms. Of course, we only hear Joachim’s recollections…it seems plausible that his parents and perhaps siblings were more devout than he, and of course they maintain a longterm friendship with a priest, but he does not mention ANY of the family receiving Last Rites ☹
Of course, at the back of my mind the entire time was the “banality of good” of the Quangels of Hans Fallada's 'Every Man Dies Alone.' More particularly, the [paraphrased] line from the introduction: they could have given no more than their lives. When simply listening to foreign radio was a crime punishable by death, the Fests' daily acts of resistance risked their lives, and therefore were meritorious.
The impact in this world was not nothing. Yet how do these acts echo in eternity…was it all for nought?
Other notes:
I LOVED Fest’s literary references!
Flesh out the idea that two of the brothers fought, and one died, as Nazis. Yet not until it was the only option left: “one does not volunteer for Hitler’s criminal war!” [Johannes]
July 15, 2014
Fest, Joachim, Not I: Memoirs of a German Childhood, Translated from the German by Martin Chalmers, Other Press, New York, 2014 (427pp. $16.95)
The German historian, cultural critic and part-time journalist, Joachim Fest, is best known in the West for his 1974 biography of Hitler, which was translated into twenty languages and became pivotal in the revisionist histories of the Nazi regime undertaken not by the victors, but by the vanquished. As chief editor of the influential Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany’s most prominent national newspapers, Fest’s political and social opinions defined for many center-conservatives in Germany the emerging consensus about the country’s past guilt and future prospects. Although he died in 2006, his books Speer: The Final Verdict (2002) and Hitler’s Bunker (2005), remain in print and widely read, and his Hitler biography looms as a landmark of scholarship.
Fest’s spiritual biography (known in Germany from the “Bildung” tradition) has just been published by Other Press in an elegantly made trade paper edition, appearing in the United States at last after its original publication in Germany by Rowahlt Verlag in Berlin. Born to a Catholic family of substantial means in 1926, Fest’s youth was spent in comfortable circumstances in one of the leafy bourgeois suburbs of western Berlin, where much of the turmoil, inflation, and violence of the Nazi-Communist civil war rarely penetrated. Fest’s father was a conservative center schoolmaster, his mother a traditional Hausfrau from the wealthy merchant class. Fest idolized his puckish older brother Wolfgang and revered his stern father Johannes, whose iron rules the brothers often broke, but never despised. Much of Not I concerns Fest’s strong-willed father, who led the family in resistance to Hitler, a resistance which cost the elder Fest his job, and threw the family into difficult economic circumstances.
Much of Not I involves remembrances of Fest’s grandparents and siblings, books read, school days, squabbles with classmates, and the long gestation of his literary, poetic, and cultural yearnings, a European upbringing so typical that it almost seems satiric. Fest describes his youthful indiscretions, dalliances with “naughty photos”, and the crumbling political scene with a kind of unsentimental detachment this is almost unnerving. A few dashes of humor intrude—Fest quotes a boarding school report that observes: “Joachim F. shows no intellectual interest and only turns his attention to subjects he finds easy. He does not like to work hard. He is hard to deal with. He shows a precocious liking for naked women.” Joachim and his father Johannes both served in the war, both were captured (son by the Americans, father by the Russians), and both returned home, the father somewhat miraculously, having lost 100 pounds in prison.
Sadly, Not I is a tepid book at best, un-tempered by passion, which is perhaps a faithful rendering of Fest’s personality. Precious little is said about the Holocaust, though Fest, true to his conservative principles, denies any notion of collective guilt, and bandies on about post-war left-wing insistence on national guilt and shame, a particular hobbyhorse of conservative Germans after the war, particular those reacting, as Fest does, to writers like Gunter Grass.
Without a doubt, Fest’s family was a unique example of people who formed a kind of spiritual resistance to Hitler and the fascist program. They were never physical resisters, plotters, or bombers. The book, however, feels rigid and cold, unlike so many of the best memoirs of Russians who survived the Gulag, in which memory and resistance transcend Stalin, becoming memorials to the human spirit. Perhaps it is merely Fest’s writing style and personality that stands in the way of the book. But stand in the way it does.
The German historian, cultural critic and part-time journalist, Joachim Fest, is best known in the West for his 1974 biography of Hitler, which was translated into twenty languages and became pivotal in the revisionist histories of the Nazi regime undertaken not by the victors, but by the vanquished. As chief editor of the influential Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany’s most prominent national newspapers, Fest’s political and social opinions defined for many center-conservatives in Germany the emerging consensus about the country’s past guilt and future prospects. Although he died in 2006, his books Speer: The Final Verdict (2002) and Hitler’s Bunker (2005), remain in print and widely read, and his Hitler biography looms as a landmark of scholarship.
Fest’s spiritual biography (known in Germany from the “Bildung” tradition) has just been published by Other Press in an elegantly made trade paper edition, appearing in the United States at last after its original publication in Germany by Rowahlt Verlag in Berlin. Born to a Catholic family of substantial means in 1926, Fest’s youth was spent in comfortable circumstances in one of the leafy bourgeois suburbs of western Berlin, where much of the turmoil, inflation, and violence of the Nazi-Communist civil war rarely penetrated. Fest’s father was a conservative center schoolmaster, his mother a traditional Hausfrau from the wealthy merchant class. Fest idolized his puckish older brother Wolfgang and revered his stern father Johannes, whose iron rules the brothers often broke, but never despised. Much of Not I concerns Fest’s strong-willed father, who led the family in resistance to Hitler, a resistance which cost the elder Fest his job, and threw the family into difficult economic circumstances.
Much of Not I involves remembrances of Fest’s grandparents and siblings, books read, school days, squabbles with classmates, and the long gestation of his literary, poetic, and cultural yearnings, a European upbringing so typical that it almost seems satiric. Fest describes his youthful indiscretions, dalliances with “naughty photos”, and the crumbling political scene with a kind of unsentimental detachment this is almost unnerving. A few dashes of humor intrude—Fest quotes a boarding school report that observes: “Joachim F. shows no intellectual interest and only turns his attention to subjects he finds easy. He does not like to work hard. He is hard to deal with. He shows a precocious liking for naked women.” Joachim and his father Johannes both served in the war, both were captured (son by the Americans, father by the Russians), and both returned home, the father somewhat miraculously, having lost 100 pounds in prison.
Sadly, Not I is a tepid book at best, un-tempered by passion, which is perhaps a faithful rendering of Fest’s personality. Precious little is said about the Holocaust, though Fest, true to his conservative principles, denies any notion of collective guilt, and bandies on about post-war left-wing insistence on national guilt and shame, a particular hobbyhorse of conservative Germans after the war, particular those reacting, as Fest does, to writers like Gunter Grass.
Without a doubt, Fest’s family was a unique example of people who formed a kind of spiritual resistance to Hitler and the fascist program. They were never physical resisters, plotters, or bombers. The book, however, feels rigid and cold, unlike so many of the best memoirs of Russians who survived the Gulag, in which memory and resistance transcend Stalin, becoming memorials to the human spirit. Perhaps it is merely Fest’s writing style and personality that stands in the way of the book. But stand in the way it does.
August 8, 2017
I have read several memoirs by ‘innocent’ victims who experienced WW2 in Germany and occupied territories firsthand. This book by Joachim Fest turned out to not be what I had expected. Much of the book deals with him and his family living in a ‘bubble’ with only a few trusted friends being allowed in. The author grew up with a hyper intellectual father, Johannes, whose chief interest was German literature, music and art. His father idolized the hope for democracy which had been represented for a few years by the Weimar Republic (1919-1933). He had been a member of Zentrum, the political arm of Catholicism. Hitler and the Nazis gained power in 1933, step-by-step alienating any political activity opposed to National Socialism. Johannes’ wife Elisabeth thought that her husband should join the Nazis simply because it would make it easier for the family if they were supporting the government. He, however, was staunchly opposed to make such a compromise even though the authorities disallowed him to retain his headmaster position at a public school because of his failure to join. Had he joined, the authorities would probably have restored his position.
Joachim began attending school in 1933, the year Hitler gained power. His older brother, Wolfgang, was already a student there. There were three brothers, including the youngest named Winfried. Two sisters, Hannih and Christa, completed the Fest family. They lived in a middle-class suburb of Berlin. Johannes committed himself to go with the flow and obey the autocratic power structure but stay away from politics. Socially he maintained a low profile and impressed on his children and wife not to do anything that would bring attention to the family. The author writes this book putting emphasis on his father’s way of life, especially his academic interests.
I found this memoir different from other wartime memoirs. 1. It is more about the author’s father than about himself. Johannes chose a near isolationist lifestyle for himself and his family. 2. Only the last one third of the book relates directly to the war or the authorities’ impositions. Most references to the autocracy’s influence on the family that appear in the first two thirds of the book are brief and half hearted. 3. The narrative is interspersed with references, evaluations and critiques about books, authors, composers, musical compositions, theatrical performances, artists, creative artistry, etc. etc. I was not receptive to a cultural exegesis or exposition in a book which had the appearance of relating to living under the heel of Nazism. When writing this book Fest failed to reign in his (and his father’s) personal passion for books, music and the arts. As a consequence I thought the writer came across as a lecturing stuffed shirt posturing in front of a captured audience (the readership). 4. He mostly overlooks his relationship with his sisters. Were they so insignificant?
The last part of the book rescued its value for me but overall I was very disappointed in how he wasted so much space on his intellectual self-examination of cultural reminiscences. Allow me to quote how he relates to his life as a child and young man, this after his return from his prisoner of war experience: “Basically, I had spent the past twenty years outside the sphere of normal life; whether under the pressure that that had constantly borne down on my parents, or at school, or at the boarding school, or in the army, or as a prisoner of war. We children never complained about the difficulties the Hitler years had imposed on us; in fact, protected by our parents, we experienced them, rather, as a happy and never-threatening adventure. But was that life?” (p 377)
Joachim began attending school in 1933, the year Hitler gained power. His older brother, Wolfgang, was already a student there. There were three brothers, including the youngest named Winfried. Two sisters, Hannih and Christa, completed the Fest family. They lived in a middle-class suburb of Berlin. Johannes committed himself to go with the flow and obey the autocratic power structure but stay away from politics. Socially he maintained a low profile and impressed on his children and wife not to do anything that would bring attention to the family. The author writes this book putting emphasis on his father’s way of life, especially his academic interests.
I found this memoir different from other wartime memoirs. 1. It is more about the author’s father than about himself. Johannes chose a near isolationist lifestyle for himself and his family. 2. Only the last one third of the book relates directly to the war or the authorities’ impositions. Most references to the autocracy’s influence on the family that appear in the first two thirds of the book are brief and half hearted. 3. The narrative is interspersed with references, evaluations and critiques about books, authors, composers, musical compositions, theatrical performances, artists, creative artistry, etc. etc. I was not receptive to a cultural exegesis or exposition in a book which had the appearance of relating to living under the heel of Nazism. When writing this book Fest failed to reign in his (and his father’s) personal passion for books, music and the arts. As a consequence I thought the writer came across as a lecturing stuffed shirt posturing in front of a captured audience (the readership). 4. He mostly overlooks his relationship with his sisters. Were they so insignificant?
The last part of the book rescued its value for me but overall I was very disappointed in how he wasted so much space on his intellectual self-examination of cultural reminiscences. Allow me to quote how he relates to his life as a child and young man, this after his return from his prisoner of war experience: “Basically, I had spent the past twenty years outside the sphere of normal life; whether under the pressure that that had constantly borne down on my parents, or at school, or at the boarding school, or in the army, or as a prisoner of war. We children never complained about the difficulties the Hitler years had imposed on us; in fact, protected by our parents, we experienced them, rather, as a happy and never-threatening adventure. But was that life?” (p 377)
October 4, 2014
This is an important memoir. It is by Joachim Fest and dwells on being raised in Nazi Germany 1933-1946. He was born in 1926 so when the Nazi's took control in 33 he was 8 years old. His father was consistent in resisting the Nazis and walk a narrow line between jeopardizing his family and keeping one's values. I recommend this as an important work to understand how a nation could go from reasonable to irrational. How some resisted and survived.
The title of the book: Not I was part of a motto derived from St. Peter's denial that he would deny Christ in St. Matthew's Gospel.
"Etiam si omnes, ego nom!" motto meaning: Even if all others do...Not I!
Loosely derived from St. Matthew's Gospel 26:33
This motto was something his German father taught his children during Nazi Germany to explain and help them cope with his resistance to and punishment by the Hitler years (1933-1945). Fascinating account of memoir by Joachim Fest in "Not I".
The title of the book: Not I was part of a motto derived from St. Peter's denial that he would deny Christ in St. Matthew's Gospel.
"Etiam si omnes, ego nom!" motto meaning: Even if all others do...Not I!
Loosely derived from St. Matthew's Gospel 26:33
This motto was something his German father taught his children during Nazi Germany to explain and help them cope with his resistance to and punishment by the Hitler years (1933-1945). Fascinating account of memoir by Joachim Fest in "Not I".
August 31, 2021
Your mileage may vary on the numerous paragraphs dedicated to what he was reading at the time. Useful as a future bibliography, but sometimes frustrating to get through. But his ground level view of the Nazi years is fascinating, with the moral integrity of a dissident but with a surprising fairness to the fellow citizens who didn’t pass the test. Elegiac for a world that perhaps didn’t deserve to survive, yet whose more positive aspects still deserves to be remembered.
March 23, 2016
This is just a tremendous translation of Fest's memoir of life growing up in Germany under the Nazis.
October 9, 2017
This is an absorbing account of a family living in a kind of internal exile at the heart of the Third Reich, in a suburb of Berlin. The family’s anchor is the father Johannes Fest, who becomes unemployable early in 1933 based on his refusal to swear fealty to the Führer. While there are a few white-knuckle moments where it looks like serious persecution is about to come down on the father, for the most part it is the story of living a relatively isolated, secretive existence in the midst of a society that has gone along, passively or actively, with evil, a situation where the family must perforce, as the father advises, “Endure the clowns!”
Almost equally as interesting as the historical situation is the domestic milieu Fest describes, the world of the Bildungsbürger, the educated and cultured middle class, a world which has perhaps disappeared. Johannes Fest encourages his sons (we do not learn much about his educational or cultural aspirations for his two daughters, the youngest of his five children) to learn about history and literature, the latter in the form of poetry and drama. Novels he considers, at best, entertainment “for housewives or maids with time on their hands” and amusedly tolerates Joachim’s reading of Hermann Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund. Thomas Mann, however, is anathema to him; he considers this “apolitical man” as exactly the kind of political critic who helped doom the Weimar Republic while deploring the rise of totalitarianism. When a Jewish family friend sends Joachim home with a copy of Buddenbrooks, his father immediately sends the book back to its owner by post with “a few lines of explanation”. Joachim’s musical education is supplied by his opera-going aunt (who loaned him the Hesse) and a record-collecting priest in a neighboring house who adores Mozart almost to the point of breaking the first commandment.
At one point Fest criticizes instances where, as he sees it, Hitler was acclaimed abroad, for example in the global reaction to the 1936 Olympics.
From a footnote late in the book, presumably by editor Herbert A. Arnold, I learned that Fest opposes the idea of Germany’s collective guilt for the Nazi years, an idea Fest attributes to “Günther Grass and other countless self-accusers,” and says “they were not referring to any guilt on their own part – they felt themselves above reproach – but to the many reasons everyone else had to be ashamed.” This accusation of bad faith seems at least in part like a case of projection, as Fest himself spends the whole book exonerating himself and his family from any association with the crimes of the Nazis, embodying this stand in the book’s title itself.
About that title. It comes from the New Testament and derives from a verse his father offered as a maxim to Joachim and his older brother Wolfgang when he begins to talk to them seriously, as fellow adults, about the political situation in Germany and his own adherence to republican principles. He quotes from the Vulgate: Etiam si omnes - ego non! The J. B. Philips translation of the New Testament gives something close to its Latin meaning:
Almost equally as interesting as the historical situation is the domestic milieu Fest describes, the world of the Bildungsbürger, the educated and cultured middle class, a world which has perhaps disappeared. Johannes Fest encourages his sons (we do not learn much about his educational or cultural aspirations for his two daughters, the youngest of his five children) to learn about history and literature, the latter in the form of poetry and drama. Novels he considers, at best, entertainment “for housewives or maids with time on their hands” and amusedly tolerates Joachim’s reading of Hermann Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund. Thomas Mann, however, is anathema to him; he considers this “apolitical man” as exactly the kind of political critic who helped doom the Weimar Republic while deploring the rise of totalitarianism. When a Jewish family friend sends Joachim home with a copy of Buddenbrooks, his father immediately sends the book back to its owner by post with “a few lines of explanation”. Joachim’s musical education is supplied by his opera-going aunt (who loaned him the Hesse) and a record-collecting priest in a neighboring house who adores Mozart almost to the point of breaking the first commandment.
At one point Fest criticizes instances where, as he sees it, Hitler was acclaimed abroad, for example in the global reaction to the 1936 Olympics.
And one had to add all the pseudo-romantic embellishments of the modern world, which in its National Socialist guise was no longer defined by jazz bands, box architecture, and Cubism, but by folklore, braided hair, and Old Masters.But that first trio, anathematized by the Nazis, also had no place in Bildungsbürgertum. Fest doesn't consider how his father's conservative tastes and hostility to modernism may have helped National Socialism to be, if not embraced, at least less resisted by the middle classes who shared those attitudes.
From a footnote late in the book, presumably by editor Herbert A. Arnold, I learned that Fest opposes the idea of Germany’s collective guilt for the Nazi years, an idea Fest attributes to “Günther Grass and other countless self-accusers,” and says “they were not referring to any guilt on their own part – they felt themselves above reproach – but to the many reasons everyone else had to be ashamed.” This accusation of bad faith seems at least in part like a case of projection, as Fest himself spends the whole book exonerating himself and his family from any association with the crimes of the Nazis, embodying this stand in the book’s title itself.
About that title. It comes from the New Testament and derives from a verse his father offered as a maxim to Joachim and his older brother Wolfgang when he begins to talk to them seriously, as fellow adults, about the political situation in Germany and his own adherence to republican principles. He quotes from the Vulgate: Etiam si omnes - ego non! The J. B. Philips translation of the New Testament gives something close to its Latin meaning:
At this Peter exclaimed, “Even if everyone should lose his faith in you, I never will!” - Matthew 26:33This promise is made by Peter shortly before Christ’s arrest and it is a promise that he breaks within hours of making it. Given this context, it would seem an intentional irony to use it for the book’s title, but there is absolutely no indication that Fest recognizes any irony in using this quotation as his assertion of steadfast righteousness. In this he is unintentionally a bit like the Nazi regime itself, as he indicates in describing one of his father’s circle of dissident friends:
Hans Hausdorf also came regularly ... We loved his puns and bad jokes. And, indeed, Hausdorf seemed to take nothing seriously. But once, later on, when we took him to task, his mood turned unexpectedly thoughtful. He said that human coexistence really only began with jokes; and the fact that the Nazis were unable to bear irony had made clear to him from the start that the world of bourgeois civility was in trouble. (120-121)
January 3, 2025
Joachim Fest’s memoir Ich nicht: Erinnerungen an eine Kindheit und Jugend (Not I: Memoirs of a German Childhood) recounts his experiences growing up in Nazi Germany, highlighting his family’s resistance to the regime. The title reflects the author’s refusal to conform to the totalitarian ideology that consumed much of Germany during the Nazi era. Here is a summary and analysis of the main messages and learnings:
Summary
1. Family Background:
• Fest grew up in a conservative, Catholic, and intellectually inclined family in Berlin. His father, a teacher and staunch opponent of the Nazis, refused to join the Nazi Party or allow his children to be part of organizations like the Hitler Youth.
• This nonconformity set the Fest family apart and subjected them to professional and social ostracism.
2. Childhood Under Pressure:
• Fest describes his childhood as marked by isolation and tension, as his father’s principled stance made the family a target of suspicion.
• Despite the challenges, the family’s intellectual and cultural life remained vibrant, with discussions of art, philosophy, and history countering the oppressive environment.
3. Refusal and Resistance:
• The book’s title, Ich nicht (“Not I”), captures the refusal of Fest’s father—and later Fest himself—to participate in the moral collapse of German society under Nazism.
• Fest illustrates how small acts of defiance and personal integrity can stand against mass conformity.
4. Coming of Age in a Dictatorship:
• Fest recounts his struggles as a young man navigating a world dominated by Nazi ideology while trying to maintain his individuality and critical thinking.
• His narrative also highlights the difficulty of staying informed and aware in an era of state propaganda.
5. Postwar Reflections:
• After the war, Fest grapples with the legacy of the Nazi period, questioning how so many people—including some of the country’s brightest minds—were seduced or coerced into complicity.
Main Message and Learnings
1. Moral Courage in Adversity:
• The book underscores the importance of individual and family integrity in the face of authoritarianism. Fest’s father serves as a moral anchor, showing that resistance, even if quiet and personal, is a powerful act.
2. The Role of Intellectual Freedom:
• Fest’s family prioritized education, culture, and critical thinking as tools to counteract the indoctrination of the Nazi regime. The book highlights the value of maintaining intellectual independence.
3. Dangers of Conformity:
• Fest explores how societal pressures and fear can lead people to abandon their principles. His family’s story contrasts sharply with the widespread compliance seen during the Nazi period.
4. Historical Responsibility:
• By documenting his experiences, Fest invites readers to reflect on the responsibilities of individuals in times of moral and political crisis. His memoir emphasizes that history is shaped not only by great leaders but also by the choices of ordinary people.
5. Hope for Humanity:
• While Ich nicht acknowledges the horrors of the Nazi regime, it also serves as a testament to human resilience and the enduring power of conscience.
Why It Matters:
Fest’s memoir is a poignant reminder of the value of ethical resistance and the dangers of ideological conformity. It serves as both a historical account and a moral guide, urging readers to reflect on the importance of standing firm in one’s beliefs, even in the face of overwhelming societal pressure.
Summary
1. Family Background:
• Fest grew up in a conservative, Catholic, and intellectually inclined family in Berlin. His father, a teacher and staunch opponent of the Nazis, refused to join the Nazi Party or allow his children to be part of organizations like the Hitler Youth.
• This nonconformity set the Fest family apart and subjected them to professional and social ostracism.
2. Childhood Under Pressure:
• Fest describes his childhood as marked by isolation and tension, as his father’s principled stance made the family a target of suspicion.
• Despite the challenges, the family’s intellectual and cultural life remained vibrant, with discussions of art, philosophy, and history countering the oppressive environment.
3. Refusal and Resistance:
• The book’s title, Ich nicht (“Not I”), captures the refusal of Fest’s father—and later Fest himself—to participate in the moral collapse of German society under Nazism.
• Fest illustrates how small acts of defiance and personal integrity can stand against mass conformity.
4. Coming of Age in a Dictatorship:
• Fest recounts his struggles as a young man navigating a world dominated by Nazi ideology while trying to maintain his individuality and critical thinking.
• His narrative also highlights the difficulty of staying informed and aware in an era of state propaganda.
5. Postwar Reflections:
• After the war, Fest grapples with the legacy of the Nazi period, questioning how so many people—including some of the country’s brightest minds—were seduced or coerced into complicity.
Main Message and Learnings
1. Moral Courage in Adversity:
• The book underscores the importance of individual and family integrity in the face of authoritarianism. Fest’s father serves as a moral anchor, showing that resistance, even if quiet and personal, is a powerful act.
2. The Role of Intellectual Freedom:
• Fest’s family prioritized education, culture, and critical thinking as tools to counteract the indoctrination of the Nazi regime. The book highlights the value of maintaining intellectual independence.
3. Dangers of Conformity:
• Fest explores how societal pressures and fear can lead people to abandon their principles. His family’s story contrasts sharply with the widespread compliance seen during the Nazi period.
4. Historical Responsibility:
• By documenting his experiences, Fest invites readers to reflect on the responsibilities of individuals in times of moral and political crisis. His memoir emphasizes that history is shaped not only by great leaders but also by the choices of ordinary people.
5. Hope for Humanity:
• While Ich nicht acknowledges the horrors of the Nazi regime, it also serves as a testament to human resilience and the enduring power of conscience.
Why It Matters:
Fest’s memoir is a poignant reminder of the value of ethical resistance and the dangers of ideological conformity. It serves as both a historical account and a moral guide, urging readers to reflect on the importance of standing firm in one’s beliefs, even in the face of overwhelming societal pressure.
March 27, 2019
Here is one Berlin family's story of survival and passive resistance during the terrible years of Nazi rule; this is also the story of a youth growing into manhood, encountering and considering elements of the culture that is his national inheritance. The dominant figure in the life of the young Joachim is his father, Johannes Fest, a complex mixture of elements: school headmaster, Bildungsbürger (member of the educated middle class), Prussian (at heart, though not monarchist or militarist), a pious Roman Catholic, and a militant partisan (while it lasted) of the Weimar Republic. Johannes Fest's political activism became more subdued as such activities became more dangerous, but he remained intransigent; he staunchly refused to join the Nazi Party, even at the cost of losing his employment. As a trained and experienced teacher, he approached the moral and political formation of his children with great seriousness, forearming them against the influences which they would encounter in school and in society. At one point he presents to them the Latin motto: "Etiam si omnes, ego non" (Gospel of St Matthew), which means "Even if all others do, I do not" (this is the source of the book's strange title). To the young Joachim this induction into a secret society opposed to the prevailing power was very exciting, but to his mother, Elisabeth, these were bleak times indeed; the burden of the penalties incurred by her husband's stubborn adherence to the dictates of conscience fell disproportionately on her.
Joachim and his brothers were expelled from their Berlin school after he carved a caricature of Hitler on a school desk, a fairly predictable result of raising children in opposition to the regime; it must have taught him a valuable lesson in prudence. In 1941 the boys were sent away for the remainder of their schooling to a Catholic boarding school in Freiburg, in the Black Forest, so for much of the remainder of the war Joachim grew up separate from his parents. He was reaching an age when the world of the arts and literature represented a vast unknown continent to be explored, and he embraced the challenge with enormous enthusiasm. His family was steeped in the high culture of Europe (amusingly, a neighbour, Father Wittenbrink, declares Mozart to be the "most convincing proof of the existence of God"). For the uninitiated, this world of opera and classical music, German poetry and fiction, presents an obstacle to enjoyment of the book. I understood and sympathized with the enthusiasm, but I was raised in an entirely different cultural tradition and I can't get excited about Schiller and Beethoven in the same way that Fest does. I think this accounts for the fact that the copy I bought had been remaindered. This is a translation with respect to language, but not culture, so I can't really recommend it to English speaking readers; if you know his culture that well, you will probably read the book in German anyway.
Fest was called up for military service in the dying days of the war (a pun I hadn't intended when I typed it, but I'll leave it since it seems apt), and ended his war as a prisoner of the Americans. He is best known as the author of the first German-language biography of Adolf Hitler (1974).
Joachim and his brothers were expelled from their Berlin school after he carved a caricature of Hitler on a school desk, a fairly predictable result of raising children in opposition to the regime; it must have taught him a valuable lesson in prudence. In 1941 the boys were sent away for the remainder of their schooling to a Catholic boarding school in Freiburg, in the Black Forest, so for much of the remainder of the war Joachim grew up separate from his parents. He was reaching an age when the world of the arts and literature represented a vast unknown continent to be explored, and he embraced the challenge with enormous enthusiasm. His family was steeped in the high culture of Europe (amusingly, a neighbour, Father Wittenbrink, declares Mozart to be the "most convincing proof of the existence of God"). For the uninitiated, this world of opera and classical music, German poetry and fiction, presents an obstacle to enjoyment of the book. I understood and sympathized with the enthusiasm, but I was raised in an entirely different cultural tradition and I can't get excited about Schiller and Beethoven in the same way that Fest does. I think this accounts for the fact that the copy I bought had been remaindered. This is a translation with respect to language, but not culture, so I can't really recommend it to English speaking readers; if you know his culture that well, you will probably read the book in German anyway.
Fest was called up for military service in the dying days of the war (a pun I hadn't intended when I typed it, but I'll leave it since it seems apt), and ended his war as a prisoner of the Americans. He is best known as the author of the first German-language biography of Adolf Hitler (1974).
June 29, 2018
This is a very interesting and sincere book. Joachim Fest was a well-known author and newspaperman in modern Germany. This is his story about his boyhood and youth during the Nazi years. His father was a liberal and politically active during the Weimar years. Despite his achievements as an educator, the father was fired from his job in education a couple of months after the election of Hitler. Later, he was banned from taking any employment. This plunged the family into a precarious financial life.
We learn in the book how it was possible to live in Nazi Germany and continue a daily life -- for example, going to school and learning Latin in the traditional gymnasium system. We also see there was widespread scepticism and anger at the regime. Of course, both were fruitless. Both were clandestine because opposition even in language was dangerous for German citizens. We see how inexorably German life was channeled by the State. For example, the Boy Scouts were subsumed into the Hitler Youth. We see the plight of the Jewish friends of the Fest family. Some left Germany. Some simply seemed unable to. The irritation of Fest's father with the latter despite repeated exhortations and his own ambiguous circumstances is interesting. We see the pressure to join "the party" simply because daily life was too hard for the family without membership. (No one in the family joined.) We see how young men -- at least the young men of more privileged secondary education -- continued to be strictly and classically educated and how they were drawn into the war as soldiers. We see how deep were the intellectual interests of these young men and of the Fest family.
For me, there is an interesting lesson in this book. When government goes bad -- really bad -- there is actually nowhere to go. This was an age of relatively difficult travel and strong borders. Also, I can imagine, as I get older and the world seems to get worse, how one can be so oppressively smothered without recourse. Not joining the Nazi party by itself was a major personal act. But to comport oneself as a moral person is almost impossible if one believes that citizens should speak up. The overwhelming force of Nazism was to end the "speaking up" and therefore to subvert or change or end moral principles. If one cannot do this easily, we see the true meaning of demoralization. One is a helpless witness as if one's moral force were chained to a prison wall.
We learn in the book how it was possible to live in Nazi Germany and continue a daily life -- for example, going to school and learning Latin in the traditional gymnasium system. We also see there was widespread scepticism and anger at the regime. Of course, both were fruitless. Both were clandestine because opposition even in language was dangerous for German citizens. We see how inexorably German life was channeled by the State. For example, the Boy Scouts were subsumed into the Hitler Youth. We see the plight of the Jewish friends of the Fest family. Some left Germany. Some simply seemed unable to. The irritation of Fest's father with the latter despite repeated exhortations and his own ambiguous circumstances is interesting. We see the pressure to join "the party" simply because daily life was too hard for the family without membership. (No one in the family joined.) We see how young men -- at least the young men of more privileged secondary education -- continued to be strictly and classically educated and how they were drawn into the war as soldiers. We see how deep were the intellectual interests of these young men and of the Fest family.
For me, there is an interesting lesson in this book. When government goes bad -- really bad -- there is actually nowhere to go. This was an age of relatively difficult travel and strong borders. Also, I can imagine, as I get older and the world seems to get worse, how one can be so oppressively smothered without recourse. Not joining the Nazi party by itself was a major personal act. But to comport oneself as a moral person is almost impossible if one believes that citizens should speak up. The overwhelming force of Nazism was to end the "speaking up" and therefore to subvert or change or end moral principles. If one cannot do this easily, we see the true meaning of demoralization. One is a helpless witness as if one's moral force were chained to a prison wall.
May 16, 2022
This book is a personal memoir of a childhood growing up in the Third Reich, culminating in time spent as a prisoner of war after the surrender of Germany in 1945.
The author's father steadfastly refused to acknowledge or bow down to the Nazis, and could not fathom how the middle class to which he belonged did not laugh Hitler and the Nazis out of town. Drafted from school into the military he found there like minded free spirits who were critical of the regime, but also guarded as to whom they confided. Tragically his older brother died of illness and his father was taken prisoner by the Russians in Konigsberg. An uncle was murdered by an American soldier after he protested at the treatment of his daughters by the occupiers, a crime that went unpunished.
Accepted for a doctoral program at university the author was made an offer he could not refuse by RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) and became a journalist instead. He went on to write a biography of Hitler that was published in 1973, the first biography written by a German. It was controversial as the author asserted that it was not economic factors that brought Hitler to power, but that Germans identified themselves with Hitler; when he spoke they recognised his voice as theirs. For those who find that view repugnant-never mind that the current political landscape around the world is populated with many `populist' politicians-this book provides context of the author's own experiences that would have helped form that conclusion.
Definitely a book to be read, especially prior to his Hitler biography.
The author's father steadfastly refused to acknowledge or bow down to the Nazis, and could not fathom how the middle class to which he belonged did not laugh Hitler and the Nazis out of town. Drafted from school into the military he found there like minded free spirits who were critical of the regime, but also guarded as to whom they confided. Tragically his older brother died of illness and his father was taken prisoner by the Russians in Konigsberg. An uncle was murdered by an American soldier after he protested at the treatment of his daughters by the occupiers, a crime that went unpunished.
Accepted for a doctoral program at university the author was made an offer he could not refuse by RIAS (Radio in the American Sector) and became a journalist instead. He went on to write a biography of Hitler that was published in 1973, the first biography written by a German. It was controversial as the author asserted that it was not economic factors that brought Hitler to power, but that Germans identified themselves with Hitler; when he spoke they recognised his voice as theirs. For those who find that view repugnant-never mind that the current political landscape around the world is populated with many `populist' politicians-this book provides context of the author's own experiences that would have helped form that conclusion.
Definitely a book to be read, especially prior to his Hitler biography.
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