Defying Hitler

by Sebastian Haffner, Oliver Pretzel (Translator)

Written in 1939 and unpublished until 2000, Sebastian Haffner's memoir of the rise of Nazism in Germany offers a unique portrait of the lives of ordinary German citizens between the wars. Covering 1907 to 1933, his eyewitness account provides a portrait of a country in constant flux: from the rise of the First Corps, the right-wing voluntary military force set up in 1918 to suppress Communism and precursor to the Nazi storm troopers, to the Hitler Youth movement; from the apocalyptic year of 1923 when inflation crippled the country to Hitler's rise to power. This fascinating personal history elucidates how the average German grappled with a rapidly changing society, while chronicling day-to-day changes in attitudes, beliefs, politics, and prejudices.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, Germany, Politics, World War II

309 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2000

About the author

Sebastian Haffner (the pseudonym for Raimund Pretzel) was a German journalist and author whose focus was the history of the German Reich (1871-1945). His books dealt with the origins and course of the First World War, the failure of the Weimar Republic and the subsequent rise and fall of Nazi Germany under Hitler.

In 1938 he emigrated from Nazi Germany with his Jewish fiancée to London, hardly able to speak English but becoming rapidly proficient in the language. He adopted the pseudonym Sebastian Haffner so that his family back in Germany would not be endangered by his writing.

Haffner wrote for the London Sunday newspaper, The Observer, and then became its editor-in-chief. In 1954, he became its German correspondent in Berlin, a position which he kept until the building of the Berlin Wall.

He wrote for the German newspaper, Die Welt, until 1962, and then until 1975 was a columnist for the Stern magazine. Haffner was a frequent guest on the television show Internationaler Frühschoppen and had his own television program on the German channel, Sender Freies Berlin.

Reviews

[Lilo · Rating 5 out of 5]

MUST READ! MUST READ!! MUST READ!!!

The above book is THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK I read this year. It may even be the most important book I read in all my life.

Upfront: Defying Hitler is a historical/political memoir that was written in 1939, after the author had emigrated to England (in 1938). When WWII broke out (in September 1939), the author deserted this book project, as he no longer considered his private memories important, and turned to writing professional historical and political books and essays, with which he became a renowned book author and journalist. (As a journalist, he wrote for the Spiegel, the Stern, the Welt, and other political magazines and newspapers.) Please read the Wikipedia page on Sebastian Haffner. Here is the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebasti.... The above book was first published by his son, in 2001.

SO WHY IS THIS MEMOIR SO IMPORTANT?

It is so important because it shows as no other Third Reich book I have read (and I have read quite a number of Third Reich non-fiction books) not only HOW EXACTLY Hitler and his henchmen managed to come to power and how this evil regime had developed A PERFECT SYSTEM to recruit the uneducated, the stupid, the naive, the ideological dreamers, and those who just simply longed for a “Fuehrer”. It shows in detail how it worked, as it trapped adults with lies, deceit, false promises, and propaganda, and how it worked as it seduced adults, youth, and children alike, with rallies, marches, and social events, numbing their minds with march-music, beats of drums, waving of flags, and constantly repeated dulling slogans, until some 44% of Germans shouted “Heil!”, voted for Hitler, and ran with the Nazi crowd.

So where were the other 56% of Germans, who were either on the political Left or who just simply had some brain left?

The answer: This evil regime had not only developed a perfect system to secure a base of immature and/or uneducated and/or not-so-bright and/or opportunistic and/or perfect-world-seeking unrealistic followers, it had also developed a perfect system to terrorize the remaining population, so that there would be no opposition left.

Some of those terrorized and in fear would eventually come round and also shout “Heil!”, might even join in to terrorize and torture (as it is safer and more pleasant to terrorize and torture than to get terrorized and tortured).

Some of those terrorized and in fear would emigrate. This, unfortunately, was only an option for a very small percentage of the unhappy population. The costs involved with emigration would exceed the financial means of most people. And how would they support themselves in a foreign country (with, in most cases, a foreign language)? Besides, the Nazi regime passed laws that not only made emigration most difficult (with extreme requirements of paperwork) but also dispossessed most property, assets, and belongings of those who left the country. Furthermore: Other countries were not keen on receiving emigrants. Would enforce strict immigration quota and would even refuse asylum to Jews, whose lives were clearly in danger.

Most terrorized and in fear (including my own family, relatives, and family friends) would keep a low profile that gave them and their loved ones a fair chance for survival. Anyone who had loved ones (and most people do) would not only endanger themselves but also their loved ones (due to “Sippenhaft” [= kin liability]) for even the slightest critical remark. Thus, my adoptive grandmother (biological grand-aunt) endangered not only herself but all of our family when she said to a faint acquaintance, “How does this corporal [meaning Hitler] think he can win the war?” and was denunciated. It took miraculous luck that she (and other family members) did not land in Dachau or in front of the “Volksgericht” (“People’s Court” = Hitler’s kangaroo court).—Besides, how would you organize a successful revolution, when there is an assembly prohibition? Secretly in your bedroom? It’s not likely to work.—Thus, keeping a low profile was the best solution for most anti-Nazis.

And, sadly, many of those terrorized and in fear (who would not keep their mouths shut, who were suspected of having ties to opposition groups, who were considered “unworthy life” for medical reasons, who were simply not “pure-bred Aryans”, or who were found to disobey Nazi laws or ordinances) ended up dead.


You might think that you already know most of the above. You may know the main facts and structures, but it is highly unlikely that you know the devilish details of this evil regime’s perfect system. However, YOU NEED TO KNOW THE DETAILS OF THIS PERFECT SYSTEM. You need to know these details, so that you will be able to recognize them when they get repeated. This is particularly important, as some of them are already repeated, in our time, in our country.

One of the most important information I took from this book is as follows: When a “Reichstagsbrand” happens, it won’t take weeks or days until things get bad. It will only take minutes until Martial Law will be declared, which means the end of all remnants of any democracy. And it will only be hours later that dissidents will be raided in their homes, dragged out of their beds, and arrested or “shot while attempting to flee”. (The latter is a very convenient method to get rid of undesired people without having to bother with a court case, especially, as long as no kangaroo court has been established yet.)

So please WATCH OUT, SPEAK UP, and VOTE, as long as you can. ONCE A TOTALITARIAN STATE HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED, IT WILL BE TOO LATE. (And you might even wish to make plans where to go in a worst case scenario.)

Btw, Hitler had no problem finding dissidents with only very simple means. He just made it obligatory to denunciate anyone who (even only mildly) criticized either him or his henchmen or the regime’s actions or who questioned any part of Nazi ideology. Today, with the help of search engines crawling over the internet, finding dissidents would be even so much easier.

There is still time to prevent history from repeating itself. So please do whatever you can. Speak up and vote. SPEAK UP AND VOTE AS LONG AS THIS IS POSSIBLE!


P.S. I forgot to tell: This book is very well written. Yet even if it weren't, it would still be a must-read.


(After reading the above book [which is a translation by Sebastian Haffner’s son], I am now reading the German original, titled “Geschichte eines Deutschen: Die Erinnerungen 1914-1933”. For anyone with a good command of German, the German original is probably better [because some terms used in this book are a bit difficult to translate], but the English translation is very good. So I recommend to read a copy of whatever language you are more familiar with.)

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reposting this with tears in my eyes, realising the fascist plague has reached the German Bundestag as well. I thought what I witness in America was as bad as 2017 can get. I was wrong!

"Je länger dieser Sommer 1933 dauerte, umso unwirklicher wurde alles."

Translated into contemporary time, I would say: "Over the course of the 2017 winter, everything became more and more unreal."

Haffner, growing up and maturing in a Germany increasingly influenced, and then taken over by, Hitler and his thugs, wrote down his thoughts on what happened, why it happened, and how he and his close relations reacted to it - the "Story of a German".

Starting with a chilling sentence, claiming that he tells the story of a duel between a strong, ruthless state and himself, a powerless individual, he shows in his erudite prose how he came to form his own opinions on the development of fascism and its spread.

The passage that haunts me most is a dialogue between himself and his father, where he declares that his greatest fear is that war breaks out and he has to fight "on the wrong side".

His father opposes him. "Fighting on France's side would be right for you?"

Haffner tells his father that he believes that to be the only way to save Germany, but his father refuses to accept that, falling back on all the mistakes "the liberals" have made in the past, resulting in the Hitler regime. Haffner, still young and energetic, rejects that fatalistic approach, and questions his father's attitude.

"Aber dann siehst du gar kein Ziel und keine Hoffnung?" No goal? No hope?

And the father replies, "For the moment, no!"

What a horrible message for the son: his own father does not believe in any future, has no hope, and no solutions, just resignation under the worst possible scenario, blaming earlier political mistakes for current disasters.

Why did Haffner write his book? He was not a hero (despite the ridiculous, probably sales-oriented English translation of the story with the title "Defying Hitler"), just an educated, decent man who saw what went wrong and decided not to be indifferent.

He describes the effects of the propaganda machinery on himself and others with frightening honesty: how thoughts were deliberately suppressed to adapt to "groupthink" and mandatory coordinated activities for "the greater good" of the nation, ignoring individual intelligence and choice. How certain things were endured to secure personal goals like exams, career, plans for the future. How accepting one step in the chain of events compromised the own conscience and made him vulnerable, culpable in his own eyes: If I sang that song with the group (how could I have refused, in the context?), can I honestly say I am not one of them? If I waved the flag (how could I have refused, in the context?), can I say I am not supporting the party?

"So lange der Bann anhält, gibt es fast kein Mittel dagegen."

History has plenty of examples of mass hysteria functioning like a spell, all-powerful, until the hypnotised person wakes up to the ugly truth.

Haffner himself went into exile, became an emigrant, or immigrant, depending on the point of view. And he raised his voice for the importance of understanding historical processes, and emotional responses to stress, manipulation and violence.

He wrote for others to understand, so that it may not happen again. He described the slow eroding of democracy, as witnessed by himself, for example through changed paragraphs in general laws, each one taking away a grain of what people had considered basic human rights. Gradually, the exceptions were accepted as normal, and citizens got used to a completely new kind of language, and law enforcement. They stopped fighting it as it fell apart step by step, and each step could somehow be justified, in a flawed way, of course, but as a single event not worth the cost of resistance. Mass depression and fear ruled the political climate in which Haffner wrote his reflections.

That is why this book should be required reading again, for all those who say that the developments in America at the moment are due to "liberal mistakes in the past". The answer to that is: "If so, so what? Who cares?" It hardly excuses the new, more serious mistakes which affect not only the voters in the United States, but peoples across the globe.

We have a responsibility to raise our voices against aggression, regardless of whether it is aimed at religion (and this is the atheist speaking, on behalf of religious freedom, as long as the religion does not force others to believe and commit to specific rituals and rules that are only relevant to its particular dogma), ethnicity, gender, or social status. And we have to protect our shared environment against policy makers who confuse scientific data with personal opinions and beliefs based on profit. When the world is taken hostage by people with a clearly narcissistic, criminal agenda, we are in the same position as Haffner in the 1930s.

We can give up, like his father, or we can speak up, like himself. We don't have to be heroes, but sometimes, we have to choose sides. I am with Haffner on that: you can't be diplomatically standing in the middle where fascism is concerned, for its ultimate goal is to destroy diversity and freedom of choice, and to force its power on as many facets of life as possible. Master bullies need to be resisted - that is what teachers try to implement in schools, and it applies to the world of "so-called" grown-up politics as well.

That was my angry review for this week, read Haffner, PLEASE!

[Orsodimondo · Rating 3 out of 5]

NESSUNO PIÙ COLPEVOLE DEL PROPRIO VICINO


Hitler Jugend.

Con la storia contingente e privata della mia della mia contingente e privata persona sono convinto di raccontare un pezzo importante della storia tedesca ed europea, non ancora raccontato. Qualcosa di più importante e di più significativo che se raccontassi chi ha incendiato il Reichstag e cosa si siano detti veramente Hitler e Röhm

Wow, Haffner si sente in pole position!


Hitler con Ernst Röhm, comandante delle SA.

Il punto di vista di chi scrive è enormemente interessante perché coetaneo dei fatti narrati, e interno a questi fatti in quanto tedesco.
È quello di un figlio di un alto funzionario dello stato prussiano, un giovane conservatore liberale, di educazione puritana, più portato per le idee di destra che di sinistra, spinto dal padre a studiare giurisprudenza per proseguire la tradizione familiare di impiego statale.
Nel 1933, quando Hitler e il nazismo vanno al potere, Haffner (il cui vero nome era in realtà Pretzel) ha ventisei anni.
E ne ha trentuno quando decide che con il nazismo e Hitler non riesce a conciliarsi in alcun modo, meglio emigrare.



Nel 1933 alle ultime elezioni il partito nazista raccoglie il 44% dei voti. Tanti, tantissimi: ma rimane comunque un 56% che non aderisce, non lo vota, ha idee diverse.
Rispetto alle elezioni precedenti (1932) ha guadagnato un 7%. Ma è ancora insufficiente per spiegare quello che stava per succedere.

E quindi, da questa partenza, mi sono aspettato illuminazioni a go go.
Ho sperato in un bel libro di storia ricco di fatti e dati, ma sono rimasto subito deluso: non è un libro di storia (per esempio, le note sono pressoché inesistenti e collocate malissimo, alla fine di ciascun capitolo diventano quasi inutilizzabili).
Ma soprattutto, più che fatti, sono ricordi.
E quindi è se non altro un memoir. Per di più scritto in contemporanea (anche se pubblicato postumo nel 2000, questo testo era già così, pronto e ultimato nel 1940).
Ma un memoir di solito ha la qualità di essere emozionante, palpitante, vibrante.
Qui, invece, nessuna emozione, nessuna vibrazione, men che meno palpitazione. Il tono adottato è quasi sempre ondivago, con gran ricorso a un’ironia che gli viene male, salvo qui e là ricorrere a sostantivi e soprattutto aggettivi un po’ troppo enfatici.



Perché è successo, come è potuto succedere quello che è successo?
Il mistero non si svela, la grande domanda rimane senza risposta, anche Haffner non aiuta.

Il 56% di elettori tedeschi che la pensa in modo diverso da Hitler si può leggere anche in modo opposto: quasi la metà degli elettori tedeschi la pensava come lui. Un’enormità.
Che il nazismo si sia costruito sfruttando l’umiliazione per la sconfitta nella Grande Guerra e le pesanti sanzioni imposte al paese che seguirono, la povertà, l’incertezza, la fragilità economica e sociale degli anni della Repubblica di Weimar, incrociando con la crisi internazionale del 1929, è un fatto noto.
Che i partiti tradizionali, sia quelli conservatori che quelli ‘rivoluzionari’ (socialdemocratici e comunisti) abbiano tradito o si siano dissolti il giorno dopo le ultime elezioni, è cosa nota.
Se l’hanno fatto per paura, per salvarsi vita e pelle, come è stato possibile che un paese di così lunga e solida tradizione abbia consentito che quasi la sua metà aderisse a un’ideologia basata sulla violenza, sulla retorica, sulla sopraffazione, sull’eliminazione fisica dell’avversario, sulla tortura? Tutti opportunisti? Come è possibile che corpi dello stato, a cominciare dalla polizia, tollerassero, proteggessero, affiancassero, l’incredibile violenza nazista?



Sottovalutato il pericolo?
Ma le cose sono andate avanti per anni, i nazisti non hanno mai fatto passi indietro, la gente vedeva e assisteva.
Le SA, organizzazione paramilitare del partito nazista, furono fondate nel 1920: sciolte dal governo per meno di un anno, già rifondate nel 1924 – nel 1933 erano più di due milioni.
Lo stesso Hitler fu condannato a cinque anni di prigione, scontò solo nove mesi, e fu subito riammesso in politica.
In tanti, almeno la metà, scelsero di partecipare all’orrore nazista, in qualche modo, vigoroso o blando che sia stato: Questo era appunto il segreto del successo del nazionalsocialismo, il suo appellarsi a qualcosa che era insito profondamente nella natura di tutti i tedeschi.
(Peccato che la spiegazione di Haffner non riesca ad andare oltre lo spirito di cameratismo: sarebbe quella la vera ragione della vittoria del nazismo!).



Forse, come dice Haffner, in una specie di seminarcosi, con una percezione cosciente penosamente sottile dietro alla mostruosità oggettiva. Ma non mi pare granché come spiegazione.

Ecco, su questo Haffner non accende nessuna luce, non chiarisce nulla, non aggiunge niente alla conoscenza.
In circa un quarto delle pagine utilizzate da Heffner, Destinatario sconosciuto di Kathrine Kressman Taylor, pur adottando la finzione invece del ricordo dei fatti storici, si spinge ben più in là, ‘spiega’ e racconta andando oltre.

PS
Nessuno più colpevole del proprio vicino è un verso di Bertold Brecht da “Der Jasager / Der Neinsager”.

[Nika]

"This is the story of a duel. It is a duel between two very unequal adversaries: an exceedingly powerful, formidable, and ruthless state and an insignificant, unknown private individual. The duel does not take place in what is commonly known as the sphere of politics; the individual is by no means a politician, still less a conspirator or an enemy of the state. Throughout, he finds himself very much on the defensive. He only wishes to preserve what he considers his integrity, his private life, and his personal honor."

This is how this book starts.
The manuscript had been unknown to the public until it was discovered and published in 2000. The book was an immediate success.

The author, Raimund Pretzel, was an “Aryan” and a son of a respectable German official. He was one of those whom the Nazis would have wanted to see among their ranks.
However, Pretzel hated the Nazis and everything related to them since the very outset.
His life seems to have remained almost unchanged. Pretzel would study law, meet with friends, attend parties. But he sensed that serious processes were taking place under the surface.
Pretzel was keen to avoid any kind of cooperation with the regime so he abandoned his plans to pursue a career in law and started writing for the arts pages of nonpolitical newspapers. If this offered him the benefit of the doubt, it did not last long. He knew that he would have to leave Germany.

At the end of the 1930s, Raimund managed to emigrate to the UK where he joined his partner. She was Jewish, and by marrying her Pretzel forfeited his German citizenship. The last thread that might have connected the man with his homeland under Nazi rule was broken.
Pretzel dropped his name and adopted the pseudonym Sebastian Haffner because he feared reprisals against his family members in Nazi Germany.

The well-written book provides the reader with the context of what Germany looked like during the years 1914 - 1933.
It brings to the forefront everyday life which apparently continued to be normal in many ways except for occasional violent outbursts and something oppressive in the air. The author reminisces:

"I remember a particular beautiful Sunday, one of the first warm Sundays of the year, with crowds of people strolling down a broad tree-lined street. It was utterly peaceful, not a shot to be heard anywhere. Suddenly the people dived left and right into the doorways of the houses. Armored cars came rattling by. We heard earsplitting detonations frighteningly close by. Machine guns sprang to life. All hell was let loose for five minutes. Then the armored cars rattled off and disappeared. The machine guns subsided. We boys were the first to emerge. We saw a strange sight. The long avenue was deserted, but piled in front of each house were heaps of broken glass of varying sizes: all the windows had been blown out by the explosions. Then, as nothing more seemed to be happening, the strollers timidly reappeared. A few minutes later the street was again bathed in the atmosphere of a spring Sunday, as though nothing had happened."

Among the possible reasons that made 'Hitler' possible the author cites the betrayal of "all party and organizational leaders, to whom the 56 percent of the population who had voted against the Nazis on March 5 had entrusted themselves."
As a result, many ordinary people felt abandoned and thought that they had little choice but to join the National Socialist Party. They failed to see how dangerous this path was.
This assertion of the author corroborates Ian Kershaw's thesis about the supreme power having, in a certain way, been given to Hitler and his party and not taken by them.
Haffner also makes an insightful point about the so-called trap of comradeship. Haffner's own personal experience, when he was enrolled in a training camp, led him to conclude that comradeship was a tool that the Nazis used to relieve men of responsibility for their actions.

The author is convinced that by relating his "private, unimportant story" he adds a valuable brick to the massive building of history. His account appears to fit pretty much seamlessly into the bigger picture.

[Colin Baldwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up

My mum found this for me in her local street library box, knowing I often enjoy memoirs and reading about history.

This account of pre-WWII and rise of Hitler was interesting, but it did get bogged down a few times. Just over halfway through I began to switch off a little and think it wasn’t the right timing, that it was too heavy given the current world turmoils/wars, but then, to my surprise, the author spoke to me, to me directly:

‘… I interpose here a brief word to the reader; in particular to that reader who feels, not without some apparent justification, that I have already over-taxed their interest in my insignificant person. Am I mistaken or can I hear some readers … beginning to riffle the pages of the book?’

WOW! That was me.

‘…How better to regain his favour than by quickly getting back to my narrative?’

WOW! What insight from a writer.

Thank you, Mr Haffner. This was what I needed to keep going.

[Jan-Maat]

The English translation of this book is called "Defying Hitler" which I am sure helped sell more copies but underplays the wider interest of this book which covers the years 1914 to 1933 in the life of a man from the German, specifically Prussian, middle class.

While at school during the Kapp Putsch, for instance, a particularly right-wing teacher which may have been a tautology given the circumstances asks if they can feel the difference in the atmosphere now that they are ruled by a firm hand again. They don't, things were exactly the same as before. The putsch was over in a couple of days anyway. But the anecdote speaks to the expectation and hope placed in violent change and openly anti-democratic feeling around at the time.

During the inflation the young Haffner and his friends get very excited and join in the speculation. His Father however, true to the dignity of a Prussian civil servant considers that financial speculation is an improper and immoral pass time for someone in his position, Ordnung muss sein afterall. Due to the hyper-inflation come his pay-day the whole family troop off to the barbers to have their hair cut before the money looses too much of its value.

Anyway readers who bought the book expecting to hear about Hitler being defied will be keen to know that the author moves on to the time that he spent training as a lawyer. By the time his training is nearing completion in 1933 Gleichschaltung was under-way in the legal profession, ie the process of bringing that profession (among others) into the regime's ideological line, to which end Haffner and a bunch of other young trainees are sent to a training camp at Jueterbog where they march about singing uplifting patriotic songs and are generally meant to develop a sense of camaraderie.

Haffner's insight into this process was that the success of the Nazis was down to the triumph of du over sie (or tu over vous if you prefer) in other words creating a politics of the informal, politicised groups which could replace or act as a substitute for family or friends with a ready sense of society and inclusion. The victory of Fascism was the defeat of alienation and the familiar stratification of society. Instead everyone could settle down and all be mates together, so long, naturally, as they conformed - and you wouldn't want to let your mates, your chums, your pals down would you? Friends after-all stick together, at any road at least until the time comes to commit suicide in your bunker.

Shortly after the author makes his escape to Britain where at the time since everybody treated each other as foreigners he could feel safe and begin to make a living for himself as a journalist.

 

[merixien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Birinci Dünya Savaşı’ndaki yenilginin ardından Almanya’daki çalkantılı durumundan başlayarak yakın tarihi “sıradan bir vatandaş” gözünden bütün gerçekçiliği ile okuyorsunuz. Örneğin hiperenflasyonun gün gün ülkeyi fakirleştirmesini, bu fakirleşme ve uluslararası arenada kaybedilmiş bir savaşın ardından halkı bir arada tutabilmek için ülkenin içinden bir kurban arayışına girilmesini, günah keçisinin ise yahudiler olarak seçilmesini adım adım görüyorsunuz. Nasyonal sosyalizm tehdidinin ülkede yavaş yavaş yükselişini, saçmalıktan ideale çıkışını, kademeli olarak yönetimden hayatın büyün alanlarına yayılışını ve muhaliflerin direnişlerinin kırılma süreciyle korkularını ve teslimiyetlerini okuyorsunuz. Bir yandan da aşırı sağ ve benzer hareketlerin dünya üzerinde, geçmişte ya da günümüzde hep aynı sistem ile yükselişe geçtiğini ve her seferinde son noktaya gelindiği anda ancak insanlığı şaşırttığını görüyorsunuz. Bu çok acayip bir nokta. Bu sürece bu kadar net bir görgü tanığı raporundan göz atmak çok kıymetli gerçekten. Mutlaka okumanızı tavsiye ederim.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant book which makes the rise of the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s psychologically comprehensible. Written in 1939, shoved in a drawer and discovered by his son after his father's death, this book was published in 2000 to great acclaim. Haffner reflects on his experiences and thoughts as a participant and as a witness to this slow, creeping rise in the acceptance of Nazi ideas and ideology and the resulting changes in German society.

It's absolutely fascinating to read about Haffner's day to day life and how beating up Jews and aggression towards people with dissenting opinions slowly became justifiable and acceptable to some of his acquaintances. Ironically, one such experience takes place in a debating society to which Haffner belonged, a group in which dissenting opinion is normally expected and discussed with intelligence. Haffner writes about his experience in this debating group when "normal" no longer existed and important topics could no longer be debated. One old acquaintance in this group threatened Haffner's life after the two of them disagreed and "debated" on whether it was reasonable to accept that Nazi thugs were randomly killing Jews. (the other guys sat around saying nothing). Afraid for his life Haffner leaves and reflects with keen insight and intelligence on what he had just experienced.

Also interesting is Haeffner’s point that the roots for the slow escalation and infiltration of Nazi ideas into daily German life started during WW1. The adults of the 1930s were children during WWI. They experienced war as exciting, did not understand the consequences of war and felt the return to civilian life as boring.

“The truly Nazi generation was formed by those born in the decade from 1900 to 1910, who experienced war as a great game and were untouched by its realities.”

Also ringing with truth is Haffner's experience with "comradeship" and his ideas about how the Nazis exploited comradeship to "occupy" the German.

“The first country to be occupied by Nazis was not Austria or Czechoslovakia. It was Germany.

" ...comradeship relieves men of responsibility for their actions, before themselves, before God, before their consciences. They do what all their comrades do. They have no choice. They have no time for thought .... Comradeship admits no thoughts, just mass feelings of the most primitive sort. Their comrades are their conscience and give absolution for everything, provided they do what everybody else does...... Indeed, it is at bottom, an instrument of decivilisation. The general promiscuous comradeship to which the Nazis have seduced the Germans has debased this nation as nothing else could.”

I thought I knew something about the reasons for the rise of the Nazis in Germany. Not until I read this book did I really understand.

Note: The title is a poor translation from the German, apparently. The book has nothing to do with defying Hitler. If anything, it's about the opposite.

[Lewis Weinstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Haffner provides a real sense of what it was like to experience the Hitler takeover of Germany. From the eyes of a child before Hitler was ever heard of through 1938 when Hitler had squashed all opposition, Haffner reports in often electric prose how he felt.

A few examples ...

... Göring ordered the police to intervene in any brawl on the side of the Nazis, without investigating the rights and wrongs of the matter, and to shoot at the other side without prior warning

... my reaction was icy horror … I could physically sense the man's odor of blood and filth, the nauseating approach of a man-eating animal, it's foul sharp claws in my face ... even so, I did not give the new government much chance of surviving, not with Hitler as its mouthpiece

... terror under the Nazis is more repulsive than under any other regime in European history … systematic torture and murder of defenseless victims … while publicly declaring in fine noble words that nobody would be harmed and that never before had a revolution shed less blood

... The 56% of the population which voted against the Nazis then engaged in a cowardly treachery … extending from left to right … including the Social Democratic leadership which betrayed their faithful and loyal millions of followers … and the great middle class Catholic Center Party which supplied devotes necessary for the two thirds majority that legalized Hitler's dictatorship (referring to the Enabling Act)

[Banu Yıldıran Genç · Rating 5 out of 5]

sebastian haffner'in daha ikinci dünya savaşı patlak vermeden almanya'nın adım adım nasıl nazizme ilerlediğini otobiyografik bir biçimde anlattığı bu müthiş kitap, yazarın 99'daki ölümünden sonra çocukları tarafından bulunup yayımlanmış.
haffner 1939'a kadar bu kitabı kaçmış olduğu ingiltere'de yayımlatmayı düşünürken savaş çıkıp da çok daha korkunç şeyler olunca fazla kişisel olduğunu düşünmüş ve bir kenara bırakmış. oysa tarih kişiseldir. ve ben ikinci dünya savaşı'yla ilgili onca şey bilmeme karşın ilk kez bu kadar net gördüm bazı şeyleri. hakimlik sınavından sonra gitmek zorunda olduğu nazi kampı ve orada kendisiyle yaşadığı çelişki, babasının emekli maaşını almaya devam edebilmek için hitler hükümetine inandığını yazıp imzalamak zorunda kalması gibi küçük ayrıntılar yazıyor aslında tarihi. bu imzadan sonra hep yaşayacağı mide rahatsızlığı ise bedenin isyanına nasıl iyi bir örnek olmuş.
çok etkileyici.
hâlimizi hitler almanya'sıyla karşılaştırmak abes tabii ama bu işin nasıl hep aynı şekilde işlediğini görmek de acayip. ve biz bu sürecin neresindeyiz diye merak ediyor insan.
çeviri de çok başarılı, özellikle dili sanki o yılları yaşatıyor bize.
önceki sene khk'larla ihraç edilir miyim acaba diye geçen bekleme sürecinden sonra şimdi pek çok yerde kendime getirdiğim otosansürü düşündüm en çok... maalesef.

[Margarita Garova · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Със сигурност не бях германски националист...Впрочем това не ми пречеше да бъда германец, и то добър.”

Добрият германец/българин/французин (можем да допълним с всеки народ, която ни хрумне) е силно критичен спрямо себе си и нацията, към която принадлежи. Той не живее в опиянение от битката при Таненберг, Клокотница или Аустерлиц, не се гневи, обикновено в кръчмарски контекст, че някоя велика сила или омразен съсед, е осуетил плановете на родината му за вечно величие. Вместо това е по-склонен да гледа с трезв и лишен от исторически илюзии поглед към настоящето и да изпитва тревога от бъдещето.

Младият студент по право Реймунд Прецел (Себастиан Хафнер е творчески псевдоним), има за какво да се тревожи, когато по-скоро усеща, отколкото осъзнава, капана, който националсоциалистите готвят на крехката Германска република. Капан, постлан не без съдействието на морално дезориентирани, унизени и обеднели германци, политически износени социалдемократи и още нещо; нещо, което е специфично немско, исторически обусловено и така програмирано подобно на тиктакащ механизъм в немския характер, че бомбата да избухне точно през януари 1933 г. Никой не се учудва, нито пък реагира, а още по-малко се противопостява. Защо е така?

Къде намира реализация енергията на един народ, който, по думите на Хафнер, е неспособен на индивидуално щастие, чиято стихия е в колективните начинания, изпълнени прецизно и както трябва? Какво бъдеще очаква поколението, което през 1914 г. си е играло на война, спечелена само наужким? А какво да кажем за така наречения политически живот след 1918 г. с невъзможни за изброяване смени на правителства, припламващи стачки, улични стрелби и произтичащата от това пълна невъзможност за обикновения, безкрайно уморен и аполитичен германец да се ориентира в хаоса?

Хафнер нееднократно набляга, че и той е един от тези обикновени и духовно уморени хора, част от които ще се влеят в редиците на вътрешните или същински емигранти след 1933 г. Струва ми се обаче важно обстоятелството, и това прави личните му спомени особено ценни, че авторът е юрист, млад и чувствителен интелектуалец, и като такъв е усещал по-силно разпадането на държавните механизми, правовия ред и осветените от няколко века отношения между държава и човек в демократичните общества. Освен явната си, пропагандно-вулгарна страна (маршове, песни, изпънати за поздрав ръце, бомбастични заглавия в пресата), нацизмът е дълбоко подмолен в подмяната, която се извършва в тези институции и механизми, които би трябвало да защитават личната свобода от държавния произвол. Хафнер присъства и на двата феномена и това окончателно му отнема всяка надежда. Народ, който само в рамките на едно поколение преживява толкова превратности и сътресения, които при други се разстилат за векове, или става опасно реактивен, или се оттегля в черупката на апатията. Междувоенните години довеждат до пълен колективен психологически разпад на нация, никак нелишена от добри качества.

Показателни са и сравненията и с предното поколение, предадени през специалната връзка, която Хафнер има с баща си – висш държавен чиновник от старата пруска интелигенция. Хафнер става фактически емигрант след като окончателно проумява, че най-важната битка – тази, която се води за душата на германския народ, е изгубена.

Спомените му са може би най-добрата книга, която съм чела за Ваймарската република. Слагам я в личната си йерархия редом с “Неизбежна гибел” на Кестнер и “Черният обелиск” на Ремарк. Тук картината е по-директна и аналитична, критиката към своите е максимално остра, а на Хафнер не му липсва и художествен талант. Задължителна книга за изкушените от епохата.

“Германия не беше вече Германия. Съсипаха я самите германски националисти.”

“Всички добросъвестни семейства винаги отлично възпитават синовете си за последната отминала епоха.”

[Alissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I have read and studied about World War II through the years, I, too, have had the same questions Haffner's son mentions near the end of this book--How were the Nazis possible? and Why weren't they stopped by the German people? This book does an awesome job of providing some answers. It made it clear to me that Germany and its people were the first victims of Hitler and the Nazis. They were conquered first and then Hitler/Nazis moved on to other countries around them.

I think that Haffner did a great job portaying what it was like for a common German during the Nazi takeover. His confusion, frustration, and helplessness and some of the things he experienced must have been what thousands of other Germans were feeling and going through at the time. What a dark time it must have been as they came to grips with the new realities of their world. I just wish Haffner would have finished writing his whole story before he died. I would have loved to read the rest of his journey. Thanks, Michael, for the recommendation.

[Boudewijn · Rating 5 out of 5]

The German madhouse

What happens when you see your country disappear before your eyes? When your enemy is the state that wants you to betray your friends, abandon your girlfriend because she is Jewish, destroy the books you love and wants you to greet other human beings as the state dictates?

What do you do if you don't want any of that? Do you disobey? Do you become a hero or martyr? Or do you just shrug and wait and see? Disobeying or resisting will mean arrest, torture or execution. Going along will mean you have to betray yourself and your values.

This is Sebastian Haffner. This young man has an opponent - in this case the (new) German state. Of course, he is much weaker than his opponent. In fact, his situation is hopeless. But he is determined not to give in.

Sebastian Haffner

Haffner (1907-1999, real name Raimund Pretzel) was a German journalist, writer and historian. He also wrote an early memoir but never published it. But over a year after Haffner's death, his two children have published his memoirs that were discovered after this death in 1999. It is this memoir that resulted in Defying Hitler.

I knew Haffner from his excellent The Meaning of Hitler which I read back in November 2022 and which gave an exceptional analysis of Hitler's character, ideology and his rise to power in Nazi Germany. This book does the same thing, but focusses on Haffner's own experiences growing up in Germany. Together they give important insights into the period of Nazi Germany and both serve as a general warning on how to recognize the danger of authoritarianism and the importance of defending democratic values and institutions.

A memoir

This is a personal memoir depicting Haffner's struggle against the German Nazi government and his fight against it. It is this (internal) fight that Sebastian Haffner so vividly describes: a young man who is just an ordinary person from a good bourgeois background, just as thousands of others in Germany. According to Haffner, history is so much more than the stories and actions of a selected few, but rather the personal experiences of thousands and thousands of people, each with their own opinions and viewpoints, that truly make history. Haffner believes that if one wants to understand history, one must read biographies, not of statesmen but of ordinary people.

This is what Haffner has done. Haffner tells the tumultuous history of Germany through his own life story between the ages of seven and twenty-six, from the outbreak of World War I to the seizure of power by Adolf Hitler, a fatal period for Germany. Using his daily life as a guide, Haffner describes how Germans slowly turned into National Socialists in the 1920's and 1930's and how they ingloriously surrendered to the new rulers.

Haffner's generation

For seven-year-old Raimund Pretzel, as he was actually called, the First World War began like a thunderclap, right in the middle of the summer holidays. Haffner became familiar with terms such as 'ultimatum', 'mobilization', and `alliance'. He knew no better than that the war was due to France's vengefulness, British commercial jealousy, and Russia's cruelty. Haffner and his friends analysed the military news fanatically every day and counted the prisoners. The idea that war could be something terrible or dangerous did not occur to him.

Disillusionment

Haffner vividly describes the traumatic start of the young Weimar Republic, which was burdened with far too heavy a mortgage through the reparations. The disillusionment, the pitifully failed revolution of 1918, the disruption of public life in Berlin due to wild shooting between left-wing and right-wing gangs, and the rampant inflation of 1923 deeply impressed the 16-year-old Haffner. Hungry and underfed, Haffner relates how his father, a Prussian state official, was paid his salary which was immediately needed to be redeemed into food and rent before it became worthless.

Haffner compellingly describes the apocalyptic mood in Germany after the war. The First World War shaped an entire German generation, who as a child or adolescent experienced the war at the home front and readied them for World War II. A generation to young to serve in the trenches, but who romanticized war in itself and saw it as a grand game. This was the generation which has produced the most ardent nazi's who have experienced war detached from its gruesome reality and saw it as just a grand game.

The Weimar years

Then came Stresemann and the Weimar republic. Stresemann brought peace and quiet, it meant an end to inflation and ensured business as usual. However it als meant emptiness and boredom and everything was laid ready for great disaster.

The main difference between the 1914-1919 disaster and what followed in the 30's is - according to Haffner - that in 1919 nobody came into conflict with his conscience. How different it would be with the rise of Adolf Hitler.

The Nazi Rise to Power

Haffner was an einzelgänger, as a student, as a stagehand at the Berlin courthouse, and later as a student. He remained suspicious of the majority and stepped back as soon as the masses were swept away. He masterfully describes the schizophrenia of the 1930s, in which the apparent normalcy of life continues while terror against Jews and progressives escalates. Hitler's "revolution" did not begin on January 30, 1933, when he became Chancellor of the Reich and swore an oath to the constitution. After that things escalated quickly. The fire in the Reichstag on February 27th was the starting shot for an unrelenting terror. Left-wing politicians, left-wing writers, unpopular doctors, civil servants, and lawyers - everyone was arrested.

Haffner's first moment of realization came when he witnessed one of his colleague lawyers being arrested by brown clad SA thugs and he had to state his allegiance by declaring he was arian, therefore escaping arrest. The same night, he attended a social dancing party which was raided by the police and all jewish participants were obliged to leave the party - according to Haffner as long as there was still dancing, reality could be denied but not anymore. This now ended.

With horror, the 26-year-old student witnesses how in March 1933 all opposing forces capitulate without resistance to the new rulers. Hundreds of thousands of people joined the Nazi party who had previously wanted nothing to do with it. The reason? Fear, joining in to avoid being hit, the attraction of the masses, and also disgust and vindictiveness towards those who had abandoned them.

Haffner gives a great overview on how Germans reacted on the developments. There was the feeling of superiority: especially in the early years, people could see upon the Nazi's as a bunch of dilettantes and amateurs, who only deserved scorn. There were those who became embittered and didn't care anymore what happened with the Jews or the more and more authoritarian measures. There were opportunists, the so-called Märzgefallenen 1933, who only became Nazi party member to take advantage of the new jobs and opportunities. And there were those who simply tried to ignore and withdraw in order to shield themselves in their private life and their circles of like-minded friends.

Depart

It is becoming more and more clear to Haffner that he is helpless in his duel against these Nazi's. His attempt to shield himself in his private life is doomed to failure. The world that Haffner knew melts away before his eyes. His Jewish friends have fled, the books he loves have to be hidden and even some of his friends have succumbed to the brown uniform. Harrowing are his description on how his circle of close friends, with whom he has experienced joys and sorrows, breaks up in two opposing camps. With horror the recounts how a few friends, who first ridiculed the Nazi's, now in first instance reluctantly but later with full conviction cheer on the anti-Jewish measures and later even become full-fledged Nazi supporters, joining the SS. Haffner wants to leave.

By the summer of 1933 Haffner's decision is firm. Those who refused to become Nazis were left with a bleak existence of daily humiliations. The Germany that he loved was no longer the familiar world it once was. It perished before his eyes, it undermined itself and wasted away. All that remained for Haffner was to leave knowing that there was no future for him in Germany. Haffner fled to England where he wanted to help win the war against Hitler as a writing troublemaker.

I see parallels in today's world with the rise of right wing extremism, the slogans are different but if we don't are careful we might repeat. Already I see rifts appearing in my group of friends, where some have fallen under the spell of right wing populists. Perhaps we are living the 1920's all over again - this book serves as an impressive warning for perhaps what is to come.

Read more of my reviews here

[Yaprak · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aslında her şey Leni Riefenstahl belgeselini izlememle başladı. Onun sinema estetiğinin başta Star Wars olmak üzere birçok filmde kullanıldığını öğrenmemle birlikte Star Wars serisini izlemeye ve eş zamanlı bu kitabı okumaya başladım. İletişim Yayınları'nın bu serisindeki kitaplar uzun zamandır okuma listemdeydi. Bu kitapla seriye başladığım için mutluyum.

Sebastian Haffner'ın kitabına gelecek olursak bu aslında yarım kalmış bir kitap. Haffner'ın çocukları babalarının yayınlanmayan bu metinlerini İngiltere'de buluyor ve bir şekilde kitap halinde yayınlanmasını sağlıyor.

Haffner'in oğlu Oliver Pretzel ''...kitap Alman halkının iki savaş arasındaki ruh durumunu gözler önüne seriyor ve böylelikle Nazilerin yükselişini, mazur göstermeden anlaşılır hale getiriyor. Birinci Dünya Savaşı'ndaki anlaşılamamış ve hazmedilememiş yenilgi, bastırılan devrim, enflasyon macerası, sevilmeyen cumhuriyet ve hiç de azımsanmaması gereken ölçüde, demokrat politikacıların yüreksizlikleri: bütün bunlar o kadar doğrudan doğruya ve inandırıcı bir tarzda anlatılıyor ki insan başka türlüsünün olamayacağını görebiliyor adeta.'' diyerek kitabın neden çok sevildiğini özetlemiş aslında.

Bu kitabı okurken şöyle bir not almıştım: Bu kitabı keyifle okuyorum desem çok abes kaçacak biliyorum fakat o dönemi yaşayan birinin ağzından okumak bana garip bir zevk veriyor. Bir şeyleri anlamak ve anlamlandırmanın keyfi olabilir diye düşünüyorum. Tam da böyle oldu aslında. Kitap 1933'ün ortasında bitiyor dolayısıyla savaşın en karanlık dönemlerini değil de Alman halkını Hitler'e ikna eden dönemi dinliyoruz. Faşizmin yeniden yükselişe geçtiği günümüzde şartların benzer şekilde ilerlediğine tanıklık etmek ise korkunç elbette.

Bir sürü yerin altını çizdiğim bu kitaptan sonra Haffner'in Hitler Üzerine Notlar kitabını da çok geç olmadan okumak istiyorum.

[Bruce Katz]

Impossible to assign a star rating. "Defying Hitler" is a fascinating, astute, and starkly illuminating look at life in Germany in the years between 1929 and the late 30s. The author (whose real name was Raimund Pretzel) lived in Germany in those years and was able to get to England in 1938. He never finished writing the book because the Second World War began and other things demanded his time (not the least of which was two stints in British internment camps as an enemy alien). His son discovered the unfinished manuscript in a desk drawer after his father died.

Countless books have been written about those years. What makes "Defying Hitler" stand out is its immediacy. Viewing events from the inside, Haffner captures the many strong cultural shifts that marked that period. First, the euphoria that came with the 1914 declaration of war, which he likens to emotions stirred by rooting for one's favorite sports team: he followed the daily news reports from the front with the same intensity as one would the scores of a soccer team (it was, he wrote, "addictive, like roulette or opium"). After the war came the economic, social, and political ups and downs of the 20s, the various factions contending for power, violence in the streets, currency going into free fall, all of it coming to a head with the rise of the Nazis. This is a broad outline, of course. The book itself describes what Haffner saw, felt, thought.

Listening to the book, I felt I had for the first time a true understanding of how Germany fell into fascist authoritarianism. Haffner was Aryan, the right age to be drawn to the allure of the Third Reich. He might easily have found a place in the Nazi universe. Instead, he found what was happening around him mystifying, despicable, and frightening. He had many Jewish friends, even a couple of Jewish lovers. He was a legal professional. All around him, though, things began to change. Slowly at first, then faster. He describes studying in the law library one day when SA agents burst in asking everyone in the room, "Are you Aryan"? One man, a Jewish attorney, challenged the SA and was severely beaten up. To his shame Haffner meekly answered that yes, he was Aryan, and lowered his gaze. The moment haunted him for years.

Through Haffner's experiences we witness how, bit by bit, actions and language that people once would have found abhorrent were becoming acceptable. Or if not acceptable, not worth the risk of opposing or speaking out. Many Germans found the Nazi movement appealing, of course; others kept their feelings secret lest they be sent to a concentration camp, beaten up, tortured, or even killed. In time, Haffner says, obedience became habitual. He lays out the psychological forces that lead a person to sublimate individual thought and replace it with identity within a group.

Haffner was clearly well educated, thoughtful, analytic, and deeply repulsed by the Nazis. His book might have been dryly academic (and there are a few parts that drift in this direction) but somehow he is able to make the reader get a sense of the confused feelings he had: the fear, loathing, uncertainty, outrage, the rush that comes with being a member of a group of men as they go through required training in their uniforms -- like boys at a summer camp -- and then the self-disgust at what he had allowed himself to feel.

The book ends before the war broke out. But the reader knows what was to come, of course, what it all led to. "Defying Hitler" provides a foundation for understanding at least in part why so few Germans resisted and why so many went along.

If one is, as I am, of a particular temperament, the similarities between what Haffner was experiencing and what we are seeing around us today appear very troubling. I would remind anyone who thinks I'm being overly dramatic to keep in mind that the book was written before the war, before Kristallnacht and the death camps, and the millions and millions of deaths -- when Germany was under ruthless authoritarian rule but had not yet become modern history's very avatar of murderous Evil.

Although "Defying Hitler" was never finished and so much of the story is thus never told, I strongly recommend the book.

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sıradan bir anı kitabından çok daha fazlası olan Bir Alman'ın Hatırladıkları'nda; 1. Dünya Savaşı, onun yarattığı ekonomik kriz, faşizmin adım adım yükselişi, toplumun sessiz ama derinden kutuplaşması, Yahudi düşmanlığının yükselişi, Nasyonal Sosyalizm’in önceleri marjinal bir akım olarak burun kıvrılırken sonra nasıl da baskın ideoloji haline gelmesi vs. gibi birçok kırılma noktası sıradan bir insanın gözünden anlatılıyor. Tarihsel olayların, devletin, ideolojilerin bireylere nasıl etki ettiğinin en çarpıcı örneklerden biri bu kitap herhalde. Vatandaş gözünden topluma ve tarihe baktığı için üzerinde düşünülmesi gereken çok bölümü var. O kadar gerçek ve etkileyici ki okurken tüylerim diken diken oldu. Yer yer Türkiye’yle benzerlikleri düşünüp daha da ürperdim. Bunca zaman okumayı erteleyerek hata yapmışım.Çok etkileyici.

[Jan Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had strong recommendations to read this book, and now I finally have.

The book is a memoir by a young German (not a Jew) circa 1933 analyzing what it was like from his childhood in WWI up to the coming of National Socialism. He analyzes the politics and how it affected what I might call the upper middle class. This book, then, forms a counterpoint to Milton Mayer's They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45, which was about the "little men" who seemingly lapped it up. How did Nazism prevail among people who are like ourselves: educated and intelligent?

Haffner thinks the history they had collectively lived through set them up to accept Nazism. WWI was like one extended episode of fandom, and the majority of those who lived through that failed to develop an aptitude for normal life.

But worse than that is the unleashing of thug mentality on the populace at large. When the powers that be sponsored violent bullies who invaded and decimated private life, society collapsed. The justice system which legendarily had stood up to Frederick the Great, disintegrated without a whimper. The civil service -- the modernizing force that had taken on autocracy -- folded. The other parties folded and their leaders decamped to safety elsewhere. Outrageous murders and disappearings were meant to be public, not hidden or secret, the better to employ the intimidation factor.

This thing about the use of violence is not much different from other societies where violence is unrestrained and people left to fend for themselves under the power of feud and vendetta. For one example, another book I'm reading, Jill Leovy's Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America, about what happens without adequate and effective policing of violence, or, for another example, Afghanistan under the Taliban (once again). If the bullies are the bosses and the forces of authority their minions, that's what we can expect to see.

Certain parallels to the politics of the Trump administration are chilling. So glad collapse has been staved off -- for now.

In a particularly good chapter, Haffner explains the dilemma of the non-Nazi majority in 1933. Some individuals folded. For those who didn't, some found temporary purchase in a stance of superiority. But when the derided National Socialism failed to fade away, the contemptuous couldn't maintain their lofty attitudes. The result often was that they flipped into submission.

Another alternative was recourse to hatred, which stewed the resister in his own embitterment.

Finally, the resister could withdraw into a detached sort of private life -- ultimately impossible because of the politicization of everyone in your private life so that civility could not be sustained and enmity entered there, too.

But, really, all the chapters are good. They all contain insights.

A new perspective I gained through this book is on the stature of Walther Rathenau, the German-Jewish industrialist and political figure who became Foreign Minister.in 1922. I had not really absorbed that he had such a powerful and charismatic presence or that he was so venerated. He might have stood up to Hitler eventually and taken the masses along for the ride, had he not been assassinated.

My favorite chapter is the one about the comic Werner Fink, who had the talent to talk truth to the Nazis in such a subtle way they couldn't catch him. Listening to him was like an infusion of courage. This is his real name. You can read about on Wikipedia. (Last name spelled with a c.) I love truth.

I began this review with the strong recommendations I'd received for this book, and I agree it's praiseworthy. But for two members of my study group it was just another book about Hitler. It's hard to tell people they "should" read a certain book. One size doesn't fit all. But the book really isn't so much about Hitler. It can be compared to other books for consistency. One can reflect on its continuing applicability. I sharpened a few tools in my arsenal, maybe added some new ones.

Addendum: Although I read this one in book form, it was also included with my Audible subscription at no additional charge.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of Sebastian Haffner, a man who lived in Germany during Hitler's rise to power. I loved hearing the story from the perspective of the average German. I can't imagine living in such tumultuous times, but reading this book gives me a glimpse. The best part about it is the fact that it tries to answer two very important questions: how on earth a regime like the Nazis could rise to power, and how almost the entire nation where corrupted by them. It's a wonderful story that I would recommend to anyone that is the bit interested in that period. Remember, it's by understanding the past that we can best keep from repeating it.

[Georgi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Прочетох тази книга за първи път преди 15 години, тъкмо беше излязла на български. Достатъчно дълго времв, за да се изличат спомените ми от нея. Междувременно в годините оттогава изчетох доста книги за националсоциализма, войната, диктатора, Холокоста... Ето че след 15 години отново прочетох "История на един германец" и уверено мога да кажа, че слага в малкия си джоб 90% от прочетеното по темата - мемоари, документалистика, художествена. Изключителна! Себастиан Хафнер притежава невероятна дарба на разказвач, съчетана с бляскав ум и удивителна преценка за себе си, сънародниците си и епохата, която описва.
Любопитното е, че пише спомените си през 1939 г. , изоставя ги недовършени при избухването на войната, а десетилетия след това, след смъртта му, синът му ги открива случайно. И добре че ги открива, защото са чисто злато!
Хафнер прави много прецизен разрез на причините за възхода на националсоциализма, свидетелства за първата година от установяването му и всички катаклизми, свързани с това, вниква дълбоко в психологията на германците и открива обезпокоителни черти, допринасящи за плъзгането им по тази фатална плоскост. При това го прави достатъчно рано - през 1939 г. катастрофата дори още не е започнала, големите погроми над евреите предстоят, войната се усеща само във въздуха. Разсъжденията му над превръщането на германците в оскотяла тълпа нареждам до текстовете на Примо Леви за Холокоста. И в общи линии дори не се сещам за някой друг, който да се доближава до майсторството на Хафнер.
Феноменална книга! Ако искате да прочетете само една книга за зараждането на диктатурата, то нека е тази!

[Eleanor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant and clear examination of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis to power in 1930s Germany. It is chilling to see how quickly and thoroughly a group of thugs terrorised and subjugated a whole country.

Towards the end of the book, Haffner and his fellow law students were required to undergo some military training and of course indoctrination, before they could take their final exams, an efficient way of ensuring the judiciary was a part of the system.

They were in uniform and of course marching behind a flag with a swastika on it as part of their training.

"When we came through villages, the people on either side of the road raised their arms to greet the flag, or disappeared quickly in some house entrance. They did this because they had learned that if they did not, we, that is I, would beat them up. It made not the slightest difference that I - and, no doubt, others among us - ourselves fled into entryways to avoid these flags, when we were not marching behind them. Now we were the ones embodying an implicit threat of violence against all bystanders. They greeted the flag or disappeared. For fear of us. For fear of me.

I still feel dizzy when I consider my predicament then. It was the Third Reich in a nutshell."

Later when the group of young men is required to listen to one of Hitler's speeches on the radio, and at the end they all raised their arms in the salute while singing Deutschland uber alles and the Horst Wessel song. "... we all sang or pretended to do so, each one of us the Gestapo of the others."

A powerful and gripping book.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner (pseudonym for Raimund Pretzel), the famous German journalist and author, was found as an unpublished manuscript after his death in 1999 at the age of 91. It was then published by his son in 2000 and provides a first-hand account of the deterioration of German society under the National Socialist party, the Nazis. From banning books, restricting free speech, banning gun ownership, to intimidating opposition parties and putting severe and growing restrictions on Jews, Haffner chronicles all of it as a German citizen from the inside. He gives us a look at the impact of Hitler's rise to power from the viewpoint of regular German citizens. As a 25 year old German law student, he describes the day to day impact of the Nazi takeover of Germany's government, initially through the ballot box followed by tightening of their control along with the remaking of German society. The author is often considered as Germany's political conscience. Among his other publications, he also wrote The Meaning of Hitler, published in 1978, that is considered to be among the best studies of Hitler.

[Ferda Nihat Koksoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bu kitap bir düelloyu anlatır, denk olmayanların düellosunu: Son derece güçlü, muktedir ve merhametsiz DEVLET bir tarafta; küçük, isimsiz, bilinmeyen bir münferit ŞAHIS diğer tarafta.

Şahıs politikacı, komplocu veya devlet düşmanı değildir; tüm zamanını, savunmada geçirmek zorundadır; bütün istediği, kendi kişiliğini, hayatını ve onurunu korumaktan ibarettir.

Devlet, bunlara son derece gaddar metotlarla durmaksızın saldırır; fikirlerinden vazgeçip önüne konanları benimsemesini, geçmişini ve benliğini reddetmesini, arkadaşlarından kopmasını ve bunları coşku ve minnettarlıkla yapmasını ister.
Naziler en gaddar, en saldırgan, en yok edici yöntemlerin hepsini uygulayarak, insanları süratle dayak yiyen değil dayak atan tarafa geçmeye zorlamışlardır.

-Sağ politikacıların sorumluluk ve yetki vererek ele geçireceklerini düşündükleri, sosyal demokratların pasif şekilde izledikleri ve komünistlerin direnmedikleri Hitler, SA isimli sokak milislerinin şiddeti, komplo ve yalanlarla gücünü kısa sürede şansölyeliği ele geçirmeye kadar vardırdı; meclisi feshetti, Nazi Partisi dışındaki partileri kapattı.

-Ben ve bana benzeyen insanların, bizleri bu dünyadan silip atmayı hedefleyen Nazileri, sanki her şeyin çok dışında ve üstündeymişçesine bir sükunetle, adeta bir tiyatro locasında otururcasına seyretmesi kadar tuhaf bir hadise nadiren görülmüştür.
Babamla ve çoğu arkadaşımla ORTAK FİKİRLERİMİZ:
1) Uzun süre iktidarda kalamayacakları
2) Ülkenin ��nemli bir kısmının Nazilere karşı olduğu
3) Dış dünyanın biz muhalifleri yalnız bırakmayacağı
4) Direnişin iç savaşı tırmandırabileceği korkusu
5) Başka türlü gidişatın mümkün olamayacağı ön kabulü
6) Acaba bundan sonra ne yapacaklar merakının ataleti
7) Tüm üst düzey yöneticiliklerin ele geçirildiği
8) Medyanın susturulup tek tipleştirildiği
9) Yasalarla ve şiddetle direniş ve muhalefetin ortadan kaldırıldığı
10) Anayasanın yok hükmüne indirildiği
11) Hitler'in kendilerinden olmayanlara her gün terbiyesizce hakaretler ettiği
12) Günlük yaşamın uyuşturuculuğuna, alışkanlıklarına ve monotonluğuna sığınıldığı
13) Ya bizdensin ya da onlardan zamanında olunduğu
14) Bunun bir devrim olmadığı (Çünkü Devrim, anayasada öngörülen mekanizmalar dışında kalan yöntemlerle anayasanın değiştirilmesiydi ve Naziler anayasa çerçevesinde kalarak iktidarı ele geçirmişti).

-Nazilerin zorunlu tuttukları binlerce eğitim kampında oluşan erkeklere has kaba saba samimiyet dalgasında yüzmenin mutluluğu, insan karakterinde de arzulanan bir yoldaşlık'tır.
İşte tam da bu arkadaşlık ve mutluluk, insanları insanlıktan çıkarmanın en korkunç araçlarından biri olabilir.

-Naziler Almanları, Alman tabiatının derinliklerinde yer alan bireysel mutluluğa yeteneksizlik ve birlikte hareket etme vasfından da yararlanarak, binlerce kamp ve dernekte gönüllü veya zoraki sağladıkları yoldaşlık içkisinde boğmuş, zaten eksik oldukları kişisel sorumluluk duygusu'dan kopararak benliklerini ele geçirmişlerdir; onların ilk işgal ettikleri ülke Almanya'dır.

-Yoldaşlık ilişkisi, insanı her türlü varoluş kaygısından, kişisel hayat mücadelesinin her türlü sertliğinden ve sorumluluğundan, kişisel vicdandan uzak tutan bir rahatlıktır.
Buna bir de Almanların TÜCHTIGKEIT yani her ne olursa olsun en iyisini yapma illeti eklendiğinde ortaya bir dehşet çıktı.

-Yoldaşlık grubunun manevi seviyesi, en son mensubunun da ulaşabileceği en aşağı seviyede tutularak birliktelik sağlanır. Kolektif mahluk herkesin yaptığını yapmanın, seçim yapmak ve düşünmek zorunda kalmamanın rahatlığı içinde hazır programlara katılarak kolayca yaşayabilir.
Almanlar yoldaşlaştırıldılar ve hayal dünyasının esrikliği içinde boğazlarına kadar bataklığa gömülmüş durumdalar.
Ve bu yoldaşlık büyüsüne, iğrençliğin çekiciliğine, kötülüğün sarhoşluğuna giderek daha fazla teslim olan izleyicilerin hipnozu devam ettikçe bu derde deva olacak hiçbir şey yok (1933).

[Cemre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edebiyatta da sinemada da genellikle İkinci Dünya Savaşı esnasında Yahudilerin uğradığı zulmü okumaya, izlemeye alışkınız. Bu dönemde Yahudi olmayan Almanlar dendiğinde ise aklımıza çoğunlukla Naziler geliyor. Bununla birlikte, bir noktayı, tüm Almanların Nazi ya da Hitler sempatizanı olmadığını, genellikle gözden kaçırıyoruz. Bu yaz Hans Fallada'nın "Herkes Tek Başına Ölür" isimli romanını okumuş, sırf yukarıda bahsettiğim sebepten, Yahudi ve Nazi olmayan Almanların halini gösterdiğinden, çok sevmiştim. Bu kitabı da benzer bir nedenle sevdiğimi söyleyebilirim.

Bir Alman'ın Hikâyesi, kitabın yazarı Sebastian Haffner'in 1914 ile 1933 yılları arasındaki anılarından oluşuyor. Haffner, Berlin'de yaşayan, burjuva sınıfına dâhil edebilecek bir ailede doğup büyüyen bir Alman. Yahudi olmaması, Hitler'in iktidara geliş sürecindeki Almanya'da "kazanan taraf"ta yer aldığının göstergesi değil.

Bir Alman'ın gözünden İkinci Dünya Savaşı'na hazırlık yıllarında, her şeyin daha da canileşmediği o yıllarda neler olduğunu, sıradan Alman vatandaşlarının nelere maruz kaldığını göstermesi bakımından bu kitap hem samimi hem başarılı. Bunun yanı sıra bu kitapla bir kere daha görüyoruz ki otoriter liderler bir günde iktidara gelmiyor, iki gün içinde türlü türlü caniliklere başlamıyorlar. Bunu hazırlayan tarihsel ve toplumsal hadiseler var. Her şey aslında yavaş yavaş, alıştıra alıştıra, kademe kademe gerçekleşiyor. İnsanlar aslında pek çok şeyin farkındalar; ama eninde sonunda düzeleceğini, "o kadar da olmadığını" düşünüyorlar. Bir yerden sonra da hayatta kalma ve sevdiklerini koruma güdüleri sebebiyle "bana bir şey olmasın da ne olursa olsun" noktasına ulaşıyorlar. Bunları başka bir zaman başka bir ülke üzerinden okumak oldukça etkileyici bir deneyimdi benim için.

[Eren Buğlalılar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Çarpıcı bir gözlem yeteneği, güçlü bir üslup. Nazilerin yükseliş dönemine ilişkin yarım kalmış bu hatıratı bazen durup düşüncelere dalarak, kendi hayatlarımızla olan benzerliğine hayıflanarak okudum. Bazen de yazarının anti-komünizmine, devrimci düşmanlığına ve bir türlü yanılmazlığına sinirli sinirli gülerek. Ölümden korkup Nazi üniformasını üzerine geçirmeyi kabullenmesine rağmen, özgürlüğü için can verenlere yine de tepeden bakmayı başarabilen bir aydın kibri, ikinci bir Stefan Zweig vakası.

Kitap bu haliyle ilginç bir kaynak. Sadece Alman faşizminin içeriden nasıl göründüğünü değil, sıradan bir "muhafazakar demokrat" Alman'ın dünyasını nasıl değiştirdiğini de anlatıyor. Yazarın o sıralarda hukuk stajı yapıyor oluşu, Nazilerin yargı sistemini nasıl yavaş yavaş avuçlarına aldığını gözlemlemesine de imkan tanımış. Türkiyeli okur bunu da ayrıca ilgi çekici bulacaktır.

Ne yazık ki Haffner'in hatıraları bugün bizim hatıralarımız oldu. Geçmiş henüz geçmedi.

[Michal Mironov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely a book discovery of the year for me! Written through the eyes of an ordinary man, Defying Hitler describes in an extremely bright and comprehendible language the mechanism of Nazi evolution in Germany.

I have read dozens of expert studies on how the Nazis came to power. Although the facts and logics fit together, deep inside I simply refused to understand how this could have happened in a civilized and cultural country like Germany. And then I discovered Haffner. But not the well-known, academic Haffner from recent years. Defying Hitler was written by an inexperienced, thoughtful young man, often biased and mistaken, but honestly trying to understand things as they were, which makes the author much closer and sympathetic to the reader. Defying Hitler is an astutely written personal experience of a person who - by using his intuition and intelligence - anticipates and witnesses the onset of absolute evil, but fails to confront it. There had to be hundreds of thousands of ordinary Germans like Haffner, whose voices were little known so far. Indeed, even during the last „semi-free“, heavily manipulated elections in March 1933, nearly 60% of voters still rejected the Nazis. "If I were more important I would be less typical,“ the author explains why we should pay attentions to insights of an ordinary man.

Speaking about the reading experience, I was captivated by the book as if it was an eerie thriller and not a well-known history. Page after page I oscillated between silly hopes that the Nazi high tide will somehow miraculously recede, and a feeling of despair that the world is irreversibly moving towards self-destruction.

With almost unbearable eloquence, Hafner describes the creeping terror and slow escalation of fear brought by the Nazis, while the normal daily life in Germany seemed to be business as usual: “For most people - ordinary life went on. The streets were exactly the same as always. The cinemas were open. The law courts sat and heard cases. No sign of revolution. At home people were a little confused, a little anxious, and tried to understand what was happening. That was difficult, very difficult, in a short time. ...I performed my routine daily duties. At home I gave way to fruitless and ridiculous outbursts at the dinner table. Excluded from events and passive like millions of others, I let events come at me. And they did.“

Yet, when the author sits with his Jewish girlfriend in the park and tries to ignore innocent children playfully chanting "Juden Raus", I wanted to scream out loud: „Run!!!” Horrible things often start with simple gestures...

Like most Germans, the author underestimated the Nazi danger at first and often made fun of them: “I was inclined not to take them very seriously - a common attitude among their inexperienced opponents, which helped them a lot, and still helps them. There are few things comic as a calm, superior indifference with which I and those like me watched the beginnings of Nazi revolution in Germany, as if from a box at the theater. … We moved among them with the same unconcern with which visitors to the modern cageless zoo walk past the beasts of prey, confident that its ditches and hedges have been carefully calculated.“

And yet this comical but noisy minority managed to kidnap the whole country. “The first country to be occupied by Nazis was not Austria or Czechoslovakia. It was Germany,” stresses the author. This is perhaps the most disturbing lesson of Defying Hitler - that the history can easily be repeated in anytime, anywhere.

[Brian Leach · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are like me and you've always wondered just how an insane madman like Adolf Hitler came to power in a modern country like Germany then read Defying Hitler. The author, who describes his personal experiences of the time, pulls no punches and makes no excuses for the shift to radical nationalism in Germany in the 1930s.

The book is presented much like a diary recounting the author's life at specific times in Germany between WWI when he was a small child and 1933 when the Nazi regime began to reveal it's true face to the German people.

Sebastian Haffner presents his own theory about where this radical nationalism first developed and supports his theory with what he experienced.

It's an excellent book and a great read.

[Ross Blocher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Defying Hitler is a fascinating window into the rise of the Third Reich as seen through the eyes of a conscientious and insightful German citizen who just happens to be a gifted writer and future author and journalist. Its interest is compounded by the book's meta-story: Sebastian Haffner (the pen name of Raimund Pretzel) finished writing his account in 1939 before World War 2 broke out, but never published it. It was discovered in a drawer after his death and released in 2000 (as Geschichte eines Deutschen - Story of a German), only to spark controversy about whether Haffner/Pretzel ever revisited or revised his earlier work. This edition addresses that question and the conclusion: he did not.

Haffner's very personal story starts with his early years, remembering the first "Great War" as a child: his obsession with stories of battles and victories and his utter shock when the German side lost in 1918. He shares the horrifying hyperinflation that rendered one's paycheck worthless by the end of the week as Weimar marks became worthless against the dollar in the early years of the 1920s. He describes the brief national obsession with sports that exceeded even military fervor. He reacts to the various political parties and forces ebbing in-and-out of power and taking credit for, or attributing blame for, events depending on the situation of the day. He talks reflectively about German culture and character and compares and contrasts them with the character of other countries.

He notes the emergence of Adolph Hitler within the German consciousness, and many observations are chillingly reminiscent of Trumpism in America. Many did not take Hitler seriously, or assumed the country's checks and balances would contain him. They puzzled at the scapegoating of Communists and Jews, and made fun of Hitler's lack of intellectual power or support. Even after Hitler's ascent to chancellor and the Reichstag Fire, many could point to the paucity of Nazis in power and assume this national embarrassment would fade away. As Hitler ignored rule after rule and no one seemed willing or able to stop him, Haffner gives us the perspective of the average citizen and the conversations that ocurred around choosing sides, saluting swastika flags, tolerating violence, alienating Jewish friends and neighbors (including a girlfriend who ultimately fled and married another man), fleeing the country or choosing to stay.

Haffner himself prepared to study abroad, and he recounts those deliberations with his father. He was served draft orders, and forced to serve in the SA and wear the swastika armband and jackboots, participating in drills, marching to the Horst Wessel Lied and even beating up people who refused to acknowledge the Nazi flag (as he himself might have avoided months earlier). His account of serving in this despicable force and the interactions he had with other soldiers, trying to find like-minded individuals with whom he could communicate his lack of fervor for the Führer, was particularly fascinating. He was eventually able to study in Paris, but came back to Berlin in 1934.

This is an amazing historical artifact and a quick listen that gave me fresh insight into one of the most consequential periods of the past century. If you happen to have an Audible account, this book is one of the freely available "included" titles with the subscription, which is how I found it.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a memoir of German author Sebastian Haffner, who is chiefly known for his historical non-fic. I read it as a buddy read in April 2023 at Non Fiction Book Club group.

This is a memoir, written in 1939 but published after his death by his son in 2000 and became a sensation in Germany and later across Europe. I’m more used to historical non-fic and a memoir is a notably different genre, for it has no problem of a bias and not presenting all sides, or even give what could look real for the writer at the time but which has no proof later. This may sound critical, but I actually quite like the book, for it gives a unique ‘from the ground’ point of view on Germany in 1914-1939.

The author starts with his experiences during the Great War, where he, as a schoolboy was sure in the German victory right behind the horizon up to the day of the armistice, As I said, I no longer had any clear conception of peace, though I had some idea of the “Final Victory.” The Final Victory — the grand total that would one day be the inevitable result of all the many partial victories mentioned in the military bulletins — was for me what the Last Day and the Resurrection are for a pious Christian, or the coming of the Messiah for a religious Jew. It was the stupendous climax of all those triumphant bulletins in which the numbers of prisoners, size of territory gained, and quantity of booty outdid one another. What would follow was beyond imagining. I waited for the Final Victory with eager but timorous trepidation. That it would come was inevitable. The only question was what life could possibly offer afterward.

Then he gives his experience during the German revolution of 1918-1919, for which if one needs a historical account I recommend November 1918: The German Revolution, but for him, it was more about witnessing the changes and rumors and joins a school club called the Rennbund Altpreussen (Old Prussia Athletics Club), with the motto “Anti-Spartacus, for Sport and Politics.” The politics consisted in occasionally beating up a few unfortunates, who were in favor of the revolution, on the way to school. Sports were the main occupation. He considers it a definite predictor of Hitler Youth, but from my reading e.g. about multiple youth organizations in Soviet Russia, they were initially not only pioneers (who monopolized the sphere in the 1920s banning the rest) but scouts and similar organizations were present and like soccer hooligans, they saw fighting each other as an important aspect of ‘belonging to the tribe’. Then follow the roaring 20s, which in Germany meant hyperinflation and the murder of Walther Rathenau, a beer putsch and settling into an almost normal life.

The second part of the book takes a close look at Nazis getting power in the early 1933 and the impotence of the political establishment to say a word against a political terror, from communists, whom he calls sheep in wolves’ clothing. The Nazi myth of the Communist putsch that had been averted fell on fertile ground that had been prepared by the Communists themselves. Who would have believed that there was nothing behind the façade of raised fists? to other parties, both left and right, who surrendered meekly despite having their own militias (yes, a lot of people are surprised that brown shirts / SA weren’t the only paramilitary – there were e.g. the League of Communist Front-Line Veterans and a centrist association called Reichsbanner, who had had arms and millions of members, and was explicitly intended to hold the SA in check.). The author thinks that the appeasement of Nazi was a great betrayal by non-Nazi parties of their faithful and loyal millions of followers. He stresses that the majority voted against Nazi The majority was still against the Nazis. If you consider that terror was in full swing, that the parties of the left had been prohibited from all public activity in the decisive final week before the elections, you have to admit that the German people as a whole had behaved quite decently. However, it made no difference at all. The defeat was celebrated like a victory, the terror intensified, the celebrations multiplied. Flags never left the windows for a whole fortnight.

Finally, he goes over his personal experience, when passing a legal exam he, with other students ends up together from all over Germany found ourselves on the platform of its station. We had coats over our arms, suitcases in our hands, and embarrassed expressions on our faces. None of us knew what was in store for us; each of us wondered what the point of being here was. We intended to take our Assessor examinations — and for that reason we had been ordered, unasked, to this unwelcoming provincial platform. Not a few of us would have armed ourselves with quiet reservation and irony against the “ideological training” that we had been promised. But surely none had foreseen the strange, disturbing, outlandish picture we presented and how he and other were turned complicit even if all were expecting to pay no attention to the “ideological training”, but still turned from a multitude of ‘I’s to ‘we’, as Nazi wished.

A great story from inside the system and how a person became a part of the system they despise.

[Gözde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hem çok severek hem de hiç şaşırmayarak okudum Sebastian Haffner’in bu “siyasi otobiyografisi”ni.

Kitabı ilginç kılan birçok noktadan biri, 1939’da, 2. Dünya Savaşı henüz başlamamışken kaleme alınmış olması. Savaşın başlayacağına kesin gözüyle bakıyor Haffner ve çocukluğuna rastlayan Birinci Dünya Savaşını, Almanların yenilgiden ve zaferden ne anladığını, sonrasında gelen Weimar Cumhuriyetinde milliyetçi (ve sonradan Nazi) olmayan hemen herkesin (solcular, sosyal demokratlar ve hatta ılımlı sağ görüşlüler - ki sonradan hepsi bir biçimde o gamalı haçlı bayrağa selam duruyor!) nasıl hiçbir şey yapmadan yolu Nazilerin iktidarına göz göre göre açtığını hem kendisinin hem de ailesinin, arkadaşlarının ve meslektaşlarının yaşadıkları üzerinden anlatıyor.

Nasyonal sosyalizmin toplumda yarattığı yıkımı şimdiye kadar toplama ve ölüm kamplarından bir biçimde canlı çıkabilmiş kimselerin anılarından okuduğum için Haffner’in bu anlattıkları bambaşka bir perspektif kazandırdı bana. Yazarın kendisi hâkim olmak için okumuş ve çalışmış, babasıysa Prusya bürokrasisinin önde gelenlerinden, hatta Weimar’ın inşa edilmesinde büyük katkıları olan bir hukukçuymuş. Yani Nazizmin kendilerine dokunmaması için çok sebepleri var, “Ari ırktan” ama Nazileşmemiş bir aile, dolayısıyla bu dönemde yine de çok şey kaybetmiş bir aile aynı zamanda.

Beni en çok hakimlerin sınavlarını vermelerinin çok da gereksiz bir ön koşulu olan Nazi kampına gittiğinde yaşadıkları ve bu bireysel tecrübenin sonucunda Alman halkını kıyamete götüren ve Nazilerin de çok iyi kullandığı özelliklerin ne olduğunu çok açıkça gördüğü ve anlattığı kısımlar etkiledi - bir de babasının yaşadıkları. Öyle çok yerin altını çizdim ki, kitapta altı çizilmeyen yerler azınlıkta kalmış bile olabilir. İşin en acı ve korkutucu kısmıysa, bu metinde bazı isimler değiştirilirse, bizim ülkece yaşadıklarımızın aynısının çok net bir biçimde görülebiliyor olması, üstelik sene henüz 1933 ve kötülerin en kötüsü henüz gelmemişken…

Avrupa’daki birçok devlet, hatta Avrupa devletlerinin çoğunluğu denilebilir, daha kanlı doğum süreçlerinin ürünüydü, ama hiçbirinin ortaya çıkışı bu ölçüde tiksindirici olmamıştı.
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Birçok kişi direnemedi. Bunların bu işin bedelini azımsadıkları ve gerçek bir Nazi olmanın gereklerini yerine getiremeyecekleri sonradan sıkça ortaya çıktı. Ve bu insanların binlercesini bugün Almanya’nın her köşesinde görmek mümkün. Vicdan azabı çeken, parti rozetlerinin ağırlığıyla tıpkı Macbeth’in erguvan rengi krallık pelerininin altında ezildiği gibi perişan olan Nazileri; bir kere paçayı kaptırdıkları için her gün bir başka vicdani yükü omuzlamak zorunda kalanları; nafile de olsa hâlâ bir kaçış imkânı aramaya devam edenleri; kendini içkiye vuranları, uyku hapı almadan uyuyamayanları; artık düşünmeye cesaret dahi edemeyenleri; Nazi döneminin sonunu -kendi zamanlarının sonunu!- hasretle beklemeleri mi yoksa o günlerin gelmesinden korkmaları mı gerekiyor, bilemeyenleri; ve o gün geldiğinde kesinlikle ellerinin temiz olduğunu iddia edecekleri… Ama artık bunlar dünyanın kâbusu olmuş durumdalar ve bu insanların, içinde bulundukları manevi ve asabî sarsıntı içinde, tam anlamıyla yıkılmadan önce daha neler yapmaya kadir olduklarını tasavvur edebilmek de imkânsız. Bunların hikayesinin daha yazılması gerekiyor.
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Avrupa tarihinde terörün iki formu görülebilir: Bunlardan biri kontrolden çıkmış, zafer sarhoşu bir devrimci kitlenin gem vurulamayan kan banyosu, diğeriyse aklında sürekli olarak korkutma ve güç gösterisi olan muzaffer bir devlet aparatının soğuk, enine boyuna planlanmış kıyıcılığı. Bu iki terör formu normal şartlar altında devrim ve tahakküm arasında paylaşılır. İlk form devrimci terördür, anlık heyecan ve öfkede, kendini kaybetmiş olma durumunda bulur özrünü; ikinci form baskıcı terördür, mazereti kendisini önceleyen devrimci dehşetin misillemesi olduğudur.
Bu iki terör formunu, yukarıda saydığımız iki mazeretin de geçerli olmayacağı bir şekilde birleştirmek Nazilere mahfuzdur.

[Judith Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book which I have recommended to many people, and to which I have referred when discussing the subject of right wing dictatorships systematic take overs of the judiciary...