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Title: Defying Hitler: A Memoir by Sebastian Haffner, Oliver Pretzel ISBN: 0-312-42113-3 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (8 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: a deep,personal insight,and a lesson in style...
Comment: Haffner spares nobody,least himself.The story encompasses the years 1907-1933,and in all fairness,I have to state,that I read the complete story,in a German edition,so I know what happened afterwards.
the author explains,taking himself and the people about him as living examples,how Hitler and his gang could seize power,and,subsequently,sink the German ship as deeply,as it sunk,morally,ethically,politically.
Most explanatory is the phase of 1933,when haffner describes how he,his decent friends,his father,tried to retire to small niches,to live some sort of biedermeier,and were uprooted by the nazi machinery,washed out of their holes of seeming innocence,
deprived of all means and space for inner emigration.
I don't want to spoil the exquisite joy,that reading Haffner's account provides,so in conclusion,let me say that Haffner is a journalist of a kind not found anymore,short,concise,to the point,in the original at least,of a unique style,that does not require a thousand words to draw a pandemonium of unheard of proportions.
Be sure to read the book,all books,by Haffner,if they do not enlighten you to their subjects,they will do your style a world of good.
Rating: 5
Summary: Haffner's Rosetta Stone
Comment: Sebastian Haffner's "Defying Hitler" is a rare gem that explains what is was about those in Germany between 1918 and 1933 that found a hearth in Hitler's promise of a glorious Fascist future.
1933 is the story's kernel when, as Haffner says, the dual begins. Hitler comes to power. It's the state versus the individual; the struggle for one's soul. It's the ordinary person (Haffner) up against Big Brother, Nazi style, with fangs exposed, talons sharpened, ready to strike.
Haffner probes the riddle of motivation and explains how for some Hitler was the hero for the hour to restore German's stature among the leading rank of nations. For others, it was join the cause or to yield to the alternative temptation of rejection or resistance. For Haffner himself the Nazis are a deadly pestilence that overturns the individual's capacity to live, to love, and enjoy life as one wants. For Haffner, this foot soldier for nondescript humanity, what does he do?
This is the real tease. Haffner later becomes a celebrated German writer and commentator. Written in 1939, he never actually completes this early work which his son Oliver only discovers after his father's death in 1999. Thankfully Oliver fills in the blanks and we are not going to spoil the story by revealing the outcome here.
Despite the abrupt end, it's not hard to see why this book became a best seller in Germany. Haffner writes with a beautiful cynical wit and has a grasp for history and the human condition. Champollion's Rosetta Stone provided a key to unlocking the secrets of Egyptian hieroglyphs. In its own way Haffner's "Defying Hitler" is the Rosetta Stone for Nazi Germany. It's a carriage for meaning and insight into not just a dark chapter of German history, but perhaps our own.
Rating: 4
Summary: Honest account by an angry young man
Comment: Especially relevant with today's political world climate, this interesting autobiographical account of a young man's exposure to the rise of the Nazi party. A small book with a heavy message, altho' I feel it could have benefiited from some editing by or because of the translation into English.
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Title: The Meaning of Hitler by Sebastian Haffner ISBN: 0674557751 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1983 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1942-1945 (I Will Bear Witness) by Victor Klemperer, Martin Chalmers ISBN: 0375756973 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 03 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning ISBN: 0060995068 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 17 March, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The German Comedy: Scenes of Life After the Wall by Peter Schneider, Philip Boehm, Leigh Hafrey ISBN: 0374523584 Publisher: Noonday Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1992 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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Title: I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1933-1941 (Modern Library (Paperback)) by Victor Klemperer ISBN: 0375753788 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 01 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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