It sparked controversy among German historians, because Fest, a political conservative, rejected the then dominant view that the causes of Hitler's rise to power had been largely economic.

He instead believed that the Third Reich's rise to power was the result of millions of Germans turning a blind eye to Hitler or actively supporting him.

[1] Fest explained Hitler's success in terms of what he called the "great fear" that had overcome the German middle classes, as a result not only of Bolshevism and First World War dislocation but also more broadly in response to rapid modernization, which had led to a romantic longing for a lost past.

[3] Fest's film, which aimed to explain why ordinary people in Germany loved Hitler, created some controversy among some critics such as the American historian Deborah Lipstadt, who wrote that by featuring extensive clips of Hitler from propaganda films and totally ignoring the Holocaust, Fest had engaged in the glorification of a murderer.

[citation needed] Fest's biography of Hitler has been praised for its literary qualities and described as a milestone in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.

[11] Joachim Fest was lastly married to Ingrid Ascher and had two sons from a previous marriage and a daughter; all his children followed him into publishing or the media.

He died at his home in Kronberg im Taunus near Frankfurt am Main in 2006, the same year that his autobiography Not Me: Memoirs of a German Childhood was published.

[12] Fest took the main title from an incident in his childhood when, at the age of ten, he and his brother were summoned to their father's study after he had been dismissed from his post as headmaster at a school.

Fest's father asked his sons to write down and remember a maxim from the Gospel of Matthew: Etiam si omnes – ego non (Even if all others [do] – not me).