Defying Hitler

A Memoir

By: Sebastian Haffner

Narrated by: Robert Whitfield

Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

When the famous German author Sebastian Haffner died at the age of 91 in 1999, a manuscript was discovered among his unpublished papers. The book was begun in 1939, but with the advent of World War II, Haffner had set it aside. His family made the decision to publish it, and the book became a best seller in Germany in 2002. Spanning the period from 1907 to 1933, it offers a unique perspective on how the average educated German grappled with the rise of Hitler, the growing influence of Nazism, and a rapidly changing society.

Haffner's astute and compelling eyewitness accounts provide a broad overview of a country in a constant state of flux. He examines the pervasive influence of groups such as the Free Corps and the Hitler Youth movement that swept the nation. His own family's financial struggles illustrate the disaster that befell many of Germany's citizens during the apocalyptic year of 1923 when inflation devastated the country. The later peaceful but dangerously uninspiring Stresemann years contributed still further to Hitler's rise to power. This is an invaluable chronicling of day-to-day changes in attitudes, beliefs, politics, and prejudices.

A major best seller in Germany now available for the first time in English, Defying Hitler is an illuminating portrait of a time, a place, and a people.

©2000 Sarah Haffner and Oliver Pretzel (P)2000 Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart/Munchen. Translation © 2002 Oliver Pretzel

Critic reviews

"his is a gem of a book, with as much intellectual force as, say, The Diary of Anne Frank has emotional force....Essential reading about that fearsome era." (Booklist)
"[A] masterpiece...A series of vignettes that vividly convey the texture of life under an emerging totalitarian regime." (The New York Times Book Review)
"A vivid examination of just how Hitler's ascension affected an ordinary German....This intimate self-portrait stands with Victor Klemperer's two-part memoir, I Will Bear Witness, as evidence that the personal can offer insight into the political tragedy of Nazism." (Publishers Weekly)

Moving and Objective

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Unfortunately I have had very little success in convincing family or friends listen to this master piece.
Sebastian Haffner is a cool -but not detached- observer of his surroundings, even at a young age. It is almost like an experiment, where he inserts himself into hostile territory to see what type of reaction develop.

Any additional comments?

Please publish the book on kindle!

Hitler is a minor footnote thankfully

So insightful and relative to a fractured world we now find ourselves living in. I had to keep reminding myself this was written in the 1930’s. It applies today no matter what side of the political spectrum you find yourself on. Please don’t be put off thinking this is a political book. It is not. It is deeply personal and as authentic as one could possibly be about how the mass of society is a tide too strong to be dismissed. As thoughtful and authentic of a look into and ordinary soul as I could possibly imagine. I have to believe if more people would read it today we might find ourselves more prepared to handle the decisive times facing us in western culture.

Terrifying

This is one of the most terrifying memoirs I have ever read. it should be required reading in every high school world history class. College may be too late.

a personal look

this book was recommended, and serves well, to share a glimpse of what it was like growing up in Germany with the rise of the Nazi party and WWII

Fascinating!

A great, real time explanation of the events leading up to the rise of Nazi Germany. A lot of stuff isn't touched on but it is told first person as it was happening.

Great explanation

Definitely worth listening to. It provides a look at the life of the average German non nazi citizen. It’s much easier to understand how things like this happen.

Powerful

Powerful depiction of how the Nazi regime was able to take power in Germany. Beautifully written and read.

Incredible, valuable memoir

This searching recollection of growing into adulthood in Nazi Germany not only helps the reader understand this horrific historical moment, but also uncomfortably makes the reader reflect on how she or he would do in such circumstances…now.

A story of moral courage

Being interested in the history of World War II, I found the title intriguing, but felt uneasy about starting this book. I expected horrors. I was surprised at how reassuring this book was. The persistence of one person's moral center of gravity during a society's terrible moral collapse is profoundly moving. The chapter on "comradeship" is a brilliant essay on the way even a self-aware person can temporarily lose himself in group loyalty. The description of atrocities is chillingly understated. Haffner shows an astonishing ability to connect social, political, psychological and ethical themes. The prose is musical. I came away with a better understanding of how the world, at least the Western world, has changed since fascism, and with greater confidence in the future.

A brilliant and courageous view from the inside

A masterwork. Haffner's insight into his own responses to the insidious rise of the Nazis during his youth is powerful and moving. He courageously reveals his own vulnerability to a sense of helplessness and bafflement in the face of Hitler's unapologetic brutality and dehumanizing, lockstep ideology. Having grown up during the rise of the National Socialist party, Haffner experienced first hand the transformation of Germany as millions of Germans were morally and intellectually compromised. He walks us through this gradual but systematic metamorphosis, pointing out the crucial moments and illustrating their impact by revealing his own experience of them at the time. Nor does he spare himself from responsibility. The result is chilling and deeply instructive.

To me the most powerful sequence in the book is at the end when Haffner describes his weeks at an indoctrination program for prospective German lawyers under the Third Reich. While the young men are given uniforms and swastikas to wear, there is little or nothing in the way of overt political harangue or propaganda. Rather they are taught to shoot and march and, finally, to bond in a model entirely familiar to any member of an exclusive, all male group. Soon they are a brotherhood, a brotherhood with nothing in common except their brief, shared experience. They are also a well crafted weapon ready to be picked up and wielded by Hitler or any other leader with the charisma and craft required to aim them. Haffner follows this sequence with a condemnation of the quality of male comradeship which makes such things possible. His analysis is brilliant and compelling, especially to a reader with long experience in a variety of barracks and male dormitories.
Simon Vance is, as always, brilliantly clear and apparently effortless in his vocal rendering of the text.