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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 thos Leggi tutto

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

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 Leggi tutto

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. Leggi tutto

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 believ Leggi tutto

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.

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 .. Leggi tutto

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 o Leggi tutto

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