Joachim Fest
Joachim Fest, one of the leading historians, journalists and cultural commentators in postwar Germany, died on September 11, 2006. He was the author of arguably the best biography of Hitler (and the first major one by a German) and several other important books on the Nazis. He was also a prolific journalist and had just finished his autobiography. In the weeks before his death he was embroiled in the controversy surrounding the revelation that Gunter Grass had been a member of the Waffen SS in World War Two. Fest had faced the same dilemma but instead Fest volunteered for Army service rather than join the SS.