Defying Hitler
A Memoir
$31.62
- Paperback
336 pages
- Release Date
1 December 2026
Summary
Written in 1939 and unpublished until 2000, Sebastian Haffner’s memoir of the rise of Nazism in Germany offers a unique portrait of the lives of German citizens between the wars.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.
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781250441218 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1250441218 |
| Author: | Sebastian Haffner |
| Publisher: | St Martin's Press |
| Imprint: | Picador USA |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 336 |
| Release Date: | 1 December 2026 |
| Weight: | 454g |
| Dimensions: | 135mm x 208mm |
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Critics Review
“An astonishing memoir … [that] vividly convey[s] the texture of life under an emerging totalitarian regime … [A] masterpiece.” –The New York Times Book Review
”[A] masterpiece … [that] has more to say about the enduring enigma of Hitler’s Reich than almost anything else in the voluminous modern literature on the subject.” –Commentary
“Haffner is like the guide of Dante’s Inferno, tracing the slow descent into Nazism in intimate detail … Compelling … Fresh, immediate and wonderfully personal … An absorbing book.” –Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“The prophetic insights of a fairly young man … [help] us understand the plight, as Haffner refers to it, of the non-Nazi German.” –The Denver Post
Sebastian Haffner
Sebastian Haffner was born in Berlin in 1907 and died in 1999. He fled to Britain in 1938, where he worked as a journalist. While in Britain, he adopted the pseudonym Sebastian Haffner, his birth name being Raimund Pretzel, in order to protect relatives still in Germany. In 1954, he returned to Germany and established himself as a distinguished historian, commentator, and journalist, publishing numerous historical books, many of which focused on 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.
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