Product Description

Sebastian Haffner was a non-Jewish German who emigrated to England in 1938. This memoir (written in 1939 but only published now for the first time) begins in 1914 when the family summer holiday is cut short by the outbreak of war, and ends with Hitler's assumption of power in 1933. It is a portrait of himself and his own generation in Germany, those born between 1900 and 1910, and brilliantly explains through his own experiences and those of his friends how that generation came to be seduced by Hitler and Nazism. The Germans lacked an outlet for self-expression: where the French had amour, food and wine, and the British their gardens and their pets, the Germans had nothing, leading to a tendency towards mass psychosis. The upheaval of post-WWI revolution, factionalism and inflation left the Germans addicted to excitement and action: Hitler provided this, and more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #429273 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-09
• Original language: German
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Bookstalls in Britain and Germany always seem to be laden with titles about the Nazi period, but Sebastian Haffner's Defying Hitler stands out from the crowd. Haffner's memoir is an account of one man's personal odyssey through the 1920s and 1930s as Nazism took hold amongst the German people.

When Hitler swept to power in 1933 Haffner was completing his legal training by day, and enjoying Berlin by night. Indeed, what makes Defying Hitler quite such compelling reading is that it shows just how insidiously Nazism crept into every facet of a well-heeled German's life: at work in the law library , at leisure in Berlin's carnivals and parks, and most poignantly and divisively of all, amongst friends and lovers.

Haffner also reveals how the Nazis first corrupted and then refashioned a version of German nationalism, and how they also dissolved the boundaries between public and private bourgeois morality by their insistence on complete 24-hour allegiance to the state. Perhaps only a member of the Prussian elite, such as Haffner, could write with such sensitivity about the loss of privilege, patriotism and privacy, but as a moral tale of how the extraordinary can so easily become the ordinary this is an eye-opener. It is not difficult to see why it has been a bestseller in Germany, and equally why Haffner, who fled to England in 1938, became part of the post-war German conscience. Even if you sometimes tire of the relentless output of books about the 20th century's blackest decade, this book should definitely go into your shopping basket. --Miles Taylor

Review
To add to our wonderful collection of reviews, we've now amassing a good setof recommendations for Summer Reading: AC Grayling says it "offers several kinds of valuable insight" in The Guardian and we've three recommendations in the Sunday Telegraph. Miriam Gross says it's "as gripping as any thriller I've ever read", Anthony Daniels says "brilliant, moving and terrifying evocation of destruction of civilisation in Germany by the Nazis" and Richard Overy says "Brief, well-written, honest, this memoir of growing up in Germany after the First World War suddenly begins to make sense of the question: How was Hitler possible?" Susan Greenfield in the Observer praises "The dual perspective of the author not knowing what the outcome would be, and that makes it vivid and menacing." And also in the Observer, Robert McCrum makes this his firstchoice for history to take on holiday: "an unforgettable memoir of life in Germany during the rise of the Nazis, a mesmerising study of the way a generation surrendered to Hitler." And Elizabeth Buchan also chooses this in The Times. Richard Overy in the Literary Review: "At one point in Defying Hitler itsauthor asks the reader the rhetorical question: why bother to read this book? For many writers this would be a merited act of authorial self-destruction.In Haffner's case the answer is mercifully kind: his book simply cannot be put aside. As a memoir of live in Germany during the Nazi rise to power, it isunsurpassable." And another by Antony Beevor (who needs no introduction) in the Daily Telegraph: "This book, like the diaries of Viktor Klemperer shows that one can often learn far more about the psychological collapse of decent Germany from the observations of a sharp-eyed and honest witness than from thousands of pages of academic analysis years after the event.... This account, written in 1939 during Haffner's exile in England, and hidden away until a couple of years ago, provides an astonishingly effective and well-written explanation of how the Nazis managed so easily to exploit Germany's psychological weaknesses, with such devastating results for everyone." "There could not be a better time than now to be given a fresh, close-up eyewitness account of how Germany allowed Hitler to slide into power in 1933...The book has already topped the bestseller list in Germany for a year. No wonder. It reads as compellingly as a top-class thriller."Peter Lewis, Daily Mail "This is a short, stabbing, brilliant book."Max Hastings, Sunday Telegraph "If you have never read a book about Nazi Germany before, or if you have already read a thousand, Iwould urge you to read Defying Hitler. It sings with wisdom and understanding, and through a deft patchwork of the historical and the personal, manages somehow to explain the inexplicable."Craig Brown, Book of the Week', Mail on Sunday "Each of us sometimes asks what we would have done if we had been youngand German in 1933. There could scarcely be a better way to explore this question than to read Haffner's book." Evening Standard 'Written with all the pacing of a good novel, it is a page-turner, with the necessary suspense made up for by an all-pervasive sense of menace.'Adam Zamoyski, Sunday Times "It isnothing less than a clear-eyed autogiographical analysis of the German character as it appeared to the writer, and who experienced it, in his own heart and mind, in Berlin during the inter-war years." The Times "Episodes from everyday life provide memorable illustrations of what was happening throughout the country... This is a riveting story." Spectator With a very successful event (with Sebastian Haffner's son) at the London Jewish Cultural Centre on 9 May, and further reviews confirmed in all the major national newspapers, including The Independent on Sunday, Times and Sunday Times, plus a big interview wi

Antony Beevor, Daily Telegraph, 10 May 2002
'An astonishingly effective and well-written explanation of how the Nazis managed so easily to exploit Germany's pschological weeknesses'

Customer Reviews

A chilling analysis of why the Nazis attained power
The author became a respected writer and as a young man in Germany held, as he makes clear, right wing views - but not extremist ones that came to be adopted by Hitler and the Nazis. For much of the book, his tone is matter of fact, descriptive of his upbringing. The writing is clear - the book is deceptively easy to read, which makes it all the more of a shock to feel the horror that Haffner himself felt at the way political events were developing. The analysis towards the end of the book is astonishing - inasmuch as it made me realise how this young man understood that his beliefs in decency could be so destroyed - helped by willing ordinary people, who convinced themselves of the 'right' of what was happening. I have never read anything quite so simply convincing to try to explain the reality of Hitler and how people were drawn into acceptance of what took place. I urge readers to sit down with this remarkable book and be transported into pre-war Germany and then be brutally awakened into what happened.

An insight to how such horrors could have begun.
Throughout my adult life, I have often wondered how the Nazis could have come to be so powerful in a country which, to the casual observer, seemed so 'civilised'. How could the German people have been taken in by Hitler, allowing him to become so powerful when most felt he was repulsive and inappropriate? Even more, how could so many of these people then be persuaded to commit such horrendous atrocities in the name of the Third Reich and Aryanism?

Sebastian Haffner will, I think, begin to give you the answer in this book. The Germanic culture is without doubt different form the British and events during and after the First World War were very significant in creating an attitude amongst those who were to eventually 'run' Germany in the 1930s and 40s. How many of us are aware that there was a revolution in Germany after WW1?

Mr Haffner was undoubtedly someone who had enough of a conscience, was intelligent and independent enough to have been able to think for himself when the Nazis were so successfully terrorising the majority of Germans into following them. You will see that he too was very aware of the manipulation, introduced by the emerging Nazi party, to acheve it all.

To be able to read an ordinary man's account of the rise of Nazism was, I found, fascinating. His insights, perceptions and feelings as to why and what was happening around him are rivetting.

Above all, this is a book you can read. Haffner's style is moreish; the more you read the more you want to keep going.

It is only a pity that the book ends so suddenly because he never finished it.

A gripping account with deep human insights into a fascist takeover
This is a powerful story of the rise of the Nazi movement with scary parallels to modern day events. The question has often been asked how the Germans could allow this to happen and Haffner does an amazing job at describing how. Along with a controlled media, one method was to turn the volume of fear and intimidation one little almost imperceptible increment at the time. Most people just laughed at the antics of Hitler and his crowd in the beginning, but by the time that people caught on to the seriousness of the issue it was too late. By this time many secretly just hoped that it would go away like a bad dream, but history tells a different story.

The difference with this book is that it is told from a very human perspective from an ordinary German who was living through those times and who saw the transformation of German society and social interaction.

Along with this book I would recommend the movie "V for Vendetta" and the book "Political Ponerology, A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes", which describes the process by which a society is taken over, and by what kind of people.

Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. This book is an important book to read so as to be better able to read the warning signs before it is too late.