Haffner, Sebastian. Defying Hitler: a Memoir

International Social Science Review, Summer-Spring, 2003 by Harold M. Green

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. 309 pages. Cloth, $24.00.

At the time of his death in 1999, Raimund Pretzel (who would later become known to the world under the nom de plume Sebastian Haffner) had earned a formidable reputation as a historian, political journalist, and the "conscience of the German people." His most significant recent studies, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918/1919 (1973), The Meaning of Hitler: Hitler's Use of Power, His Successes and Failures (1979), and The Ailing Empire: Germany from Bismarck to Hitler (1989), offer a rare combination of scholarly precision and journalistic immediacy, two hallmarks of Haffner's style which is strongly reminiscent of Friedrich Meinecke's classic, The German Catastrophe (1950).

Since nothing from the pen of Haffner is unimportant, the publication of his fragmentary memoir, Defying Hitler, is a welcome addition to the literature about the German scene between 1914 and 1933. This work was begun early in 1939, when Haffner was already safely in England, but never completed, probably because the author regarded it as a mere autobiographical divertimento from a more substantive study which would become his widely acclaimed Germany: Jekyll and Hyde (Secker and Warburg, 1940). Thus, for sixty years the manuscript, originally titled Geschichte eines Deutschen: Die Erinnerungen, 1914-1933 ("A German's Story: Reminiscenses, 1914-1933"), lay in a drawer gathering dust until it was discovered after his death by Haffner's son, Cambridge Professor Oliver Pretzel, who, in 2000, had it published in Germany. Buoyed by the success it had there as a top nonfiction best seller for forty-two weeks, Pretzel translated the book into English, adding an "Afterword" (pp. 297-309) detailing its convoluted publication history which is as spectacular as the memoir itself. There were, for example, persistent allegations in the media of ex post facto emendations of the original text after World War II and alterations of it made again by the author before his death. In the wake of this hue and cry, the manuscript was ultimately submitted for extensive testing at the German state forensic laboratories where it was determined that the original typescript had in no way been altered.

Defying Hitler is an intimate portrait of the life and loves of an ordinary, well-educated German caught up in the surreal context of a social order in a constant state of flux. It is a disturbing chronicle of rampant poverty coexisting with all manner of excess and promiscuity. More importantly, it provides a brilliant, albeit fragmentary piece of political analysis foreshadowing the character of Haffner's more mature works.

The Inflation of 1923, and the personalities and politics of Rathenau, Stresemann, Bruning, and Hitler--components of the Weimar and Nazi periods--are well known to students of recent German history. However, in the hands of Haffner, they once again come to life, often with a completely new perspective.

A good example of Haffner's journalistic flair is found in the following observations about Walther Rathenau, the German foreign minister who negotiated the Treaty of Rapallo, and Hitler: "If my experience of Germany has taught me anything, it is this: Rathenau and Hitler are the two men who have excited the imagination of the German masses to the utmost--the one by his ineffable culture, the other by his ineffable vileness. Both ... came from inaccessible regions, from some sort of 'beyond'--the one from a sphere of sublime spirituality[,] the other from a jungle far below the depths plumbed by the basest penny dreadfuls ..." (p. 49).

Another gem of political analysis concerns Heinrich Bruning, the steely, pragmatic Catholic Center chancellor who ruled Germany by decree from 1930 to 1932. Haffner writes: "One supported Bruning because he seemed to be the only bulwark against Hitler. Knowing that he owed his own political life to the threat posed by Hitler, Bruning had to fight against him but at all costs refrain from destroying him. Hitler must not be allowed to come to power, but must remain a continual danger." The Bruning era, in short, was "a period in which the gloomy present was lightened by comparison with a ghastly future" (p. 87).

To be sure, these and other biographical vignettes offered by Haffner are essential to understanding significant aspects of the era under investigation. Yet the main thrust of Defying Hitler does not deal with the questions of "what" or "who" but rather with the question of "why." As the author himself points out, knowing who set fire to the Reichstag is not as crucial as knowing "what became of the Germans[.] Even on March 5, 1933, a majority of them voted against Hitler. What happened to that majority? Did they die? Did they disappear from the face of the earth?" (p. 184) Such questions provide the contextual basis for, and resonate throughout, Haffner's powerful memoir.

Harold M. Green

Liberty, New York