A book by historian Joachim Fest about the last days of the life of Adolf Hitler, in his Führerbunker in 1945.

This book gives us a brilliant insight into the last days in the Führerbunker while the Third Reich was being destroyed by the Allied Armies. The author does a good job in reconstructing the final days by using available evidence and calling on eye-witness accounts from those who survived the Führerbunker. If you are new to reading about WWII this book provides good insight into Hitler's psyche but if you have done a lot of reading on the subject there will not be much in the book that is new to you.

I found some of the material disturbing, eg the murder of the Goebbels children by their parents. In my mind the work also raised questions about Hitler's sanity.

Curiously the in-fighting amongst the Führer's inner circle continues to the end. Wanting to win favour or just trying to prevent being executed? We learn more about the court martial and murder, or execution as the Nazi's called it, of Eva Braun's brother-in-law Hermann Otto Fegelein. I found it interesting to read about those who decided to stay and die with Adolf Hitler and those who fled Berlin, either before his death or shortly thereafter. The work also gives some insight into the fighting in Berlin at that time. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and will not hesitate to rate it 7/10.