Defying Hitler: A Memoir - Paperback

by Sebastian Haffner (Author), Oliver Pretzel (Translator), Richard J. Evans (Introduction by)

Written in 1939 and unpublished until 2000, Sebastian Haffner's memoir of the rise of Nazism in Germany offers a unique portrait of the lives of German citizens between the wars.

Covering the period between 1907 and 1933, his eyewitness account describes a country in constant flux, where civilians struggle to reconcile the tedium and dramas of their private lives with the world-historical scale of Nazi politics. How does one recognize a turning point in real time? From the rise of Hitler Youth to the economic crisis of 1923, Haffner charts a personal history through the disturbing years in which ordinary Germans joined the Nazi party with willingness, indifference, and glee. An unflinching look at the day-to-day changes of an increasingly fascist society, Defying Hitler is a perennially urgent work of first-person history.

Author Biography

Sebastian Haffner was born in Berlin in 1907, and died in 1999. In 1938, he was forced to flee to Britain, where he worked as a journalist. While living in Britain, he adopted the pseudonym Sebastian Haffner in place of his given name, Raimund Pretzel, to protect relatives still in Germany. In 1954, he returned to Germany and became a distinguished historian, commentator, and journalist. He published numerous historical books, many about twentieth-century Germany.

Oliver Pretzel, Sebastian Haffner's son, is the translator of this work. He has also served as Honorary Principal Research Fellow in the department of mathematics at Imperial College London.