BERLIN: German historian and publisher Joachim Fest, author of a landmark biography of Adolf Hitler, has died aged 79, German media reported on Tuesday.
Fest, who was seen as one of Germany's leading authorities on National Socialism (Nazism), died at his home in Kronberg near Frankfurt on Monday, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the paper he co-published between 1973 and 1993.
The FAZ did not give the cause of his death.
Viewed as a conservative, Fest achieved widespread fame when his bestseller was published in Germany in 1973 as Hitler. Eine Biografie (A biography).
In his book, Fest argued Hitler's personality and political skills were central to the success of his party, thus distancing himself from historians who laid more emphasis on the inter-war circumstances in Germany when accounting for the Nazis' rise.
Fest's book Inside Hitler's Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich, served as part of the basis for the 2004 Oscar-nominated German film Der Untergang (The Downfall), a claustrophobic depiction of the final days of Hitler.
Other celebrated books by Fest include a 1999 biography of Hitler's architect and armaments minister Albert Speer and a study of the attempt to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944.
Fest, whose memoirs of his childhood are due to be published next week under the title Ich nicht (Not I), was born on December 8, 1926 in Berlin. He was married and had two sons.
