Sebastian Haffner
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Raimund Pretzel (27 December 1907 – 2 January 1999), better known by his pseudonym Sebastian Haffner, was a German journalist and historian. As an émigré in Britain during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Haffner argued that accommodation was impossible not only with
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
but also with the German '' Reich'' with which Hitler had gambled. Peace could be secured only by rolling back "seventy-five years of German history" and restoring Germany to a network of smaller states. As a journalist in
West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
, Haffner's conscious effort "to dramatize, to push differences to the top," precipitated breaks with editors both liberal and conservative. His intervention in the
Spiegel affair The ''Spiegel'' affair of 1962 (german: link=no, Spiegel-Affäre) was a political scandal in West Germany. It stemmed from the publication of an article in ''Der Spiegel,'' West Germany's weekly political magazine, about the nation's defense f ...
of 1962, and his contributions to the "anti-fascist" rhetoric of the student
New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...
, sharply raised his profile. After parting ways with ''Stern'' magazine in 1975, Haffner produced widely read studies focussed on what he saw as fateful continuities in the history of the German Reich (1871–1945). His posthumously published pre-war memoir, ''Geschichte eines Deutschen: Die Erinnerungen 1914–1933'' (''Defying Hitler: A Memoir'') (2003) won him new readers in Germany and abroad.


Early life


School years

Haffner was born in 1907 as Raimund Pretzel in Berlin. During war years, 1914–18, he attended the primary school (''Volkschule'') of which his father Carl Pretzel was the principal. Of these years he recalls not the privations, but the army bulletins read with the excitement of a football fan following match scores. Haffner believed that it was from this experience of war by a generation of schoolboys as a "game between nations", more enthralling and emotionally satisfying than anything peace could offer, that Nazism was to draw much of its "allure": "its simplicity, its appeal to the imagination, and its zest action; but also its intolerance and its cruelty towards internal opponents". After the war Haffner attended first a city-centre grammar school, the Königstädtisches Gymnasium Berlin in
Alexanderplatz () ( en, Alexander Square) is a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin. The square is named after the Russian Tsar Alexander I, which also denotes the larger neighbourhood stretching from in the nort ...
. Here he befriended children of the city's leading Jewish families in business and the liberal professions. They were precocious, cultivated and left-leaning.Sebastian Haffner: ''Als Engländer maskiert. Ein Gespräch mit Jutta Krug über das Exil.'' btb Verlag, 2008, S. 16
Leseprobe.
(PDF)
His adolescent politics, however, took a turn rightward after he moved, in 1924, to the Schillergymnasium in
Lichterfelde Lichterfelde may refer to: * Lichterfelde (Berlin), a locality in the borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf in Berlin, Germany * Lichterfelde West, an elegant residential area in Berlin * Lichterfelde, Saxony-Anhalt, a municipality in the Stendhal Distric ...
heavily subscribed to by families in the military. Haffner was later to remark that: "My whole life has been determined by my experiences in these two schools".


Hitler and exile

After January 1933, Haffner witnessed as a law student the deployment of the SA's as an "auxiliary police force" and, after the March
Reichstag fire The Reichstag fire (german: Reichstagsbrand, ) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of ...
, their hounding of Jewish and democratic jurists from the courts. What shocked him most in these events was the complete absence of "any act of courage or spirit". In the face of Hitler's ascent it seemed as if "a million individuals simultaneously suffered a nervous collapse". There was disbelief, but no resistance. Doctoral research allowed Haffner to take refuge in Paris, but unable to gain a foothold in the city he returned to Berlin in 1934. Having already published some shorter fiction as a serial novelist for the ''
Vossische Zeitung The (''Voss's Newspaper'') was a nationally-known Berlin newspaper that represented the interests of the liberal middle class. It was also generally regarded as Germany's national newspaper of record. In the Berlin press it held a special role d ...
'', he was able to make a living writing '' feuilletons'' for style magazines where "a certain cultural aesthetic exclusivity was tolerated" by the Nazis. But the tightening of political controls and, more immediately, the pregnancy of his journalist girlfriend, classed as Jewish under the
Nuremberg Laws The Nuremberg Laws (german: link=no, Nürnberger Gesetze, ) were antisemitic and racist laws that were enacted in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935, at a special meeting of the Reichstag convened during the annual Nuremberg Rally of th ...
, urged emigration. In 1938 Erika Schmidt-Landry (née Hirsch) (1899-1969) was able to join a brother in England, and Haffner, on a commission from the Ullstein Press, was able to follow her. They married weeks before the birth of their son Oliver Pretzel. Britain's declaration of war against Germany on 3 September 1939 saved Haffner from deportation. As enemy aliens Haffner and his wife were interned, but in August 1940 they were among the first to be released from camps on the
Isle of Man ) , anthem = "O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europe ...
. In June,
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
's publisher
Fredric Warburg Fredric John Warburg (27 November 1898 – 25 May 1981) was a British publisher best known for his association with the author George Orwell. During a career spanning a large part of the 20th century and ending in 1971, Warburg published Orwel ...
had released ''Germany, Jekyll and Hyde'', Haffner's first work in English and the first for which, to protect his family in Germany, he used the names he was to retain: Sebastian (from
Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...
) and Haffner (from Mozart's Haffner Symphony). In the House of Commons questions had been asked as to why the author of so important a book was being detained. Lord Vansittart described Haffner's analysis of "Hitlerism and the German problem" as "the most important ..that has yet appeared".


Political émigré


''Germany: Jekyll and Hyde''

In a polemic that rehearsed the themes of his later historical work, Haffner argued that Britain was naïve in declaring its "quarrel" to be with Hitler only and not with the German people. Hitler had "gained more adherents in Germany and come nearer to absolute power than anyone before him", and had done so by "more or less normal means of persuasion and attraction." This did not mean that "Hitler is Germany", but it was rash to assume that beneath Germany's vaunted unity there existed nothing but "discontent, secret opposition and repressed decency". Germans had entered the war divided. Less than one in five were true devotees, the "real Nazis". No consideration, not even the "
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
menace", could reconcile this "morally inaccessible" section of the New Germany to a stable Europe. The
anti-Semitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...
that is their "badge" had outrun its original motive: the venting of Hitler's private resentments, the scapegoating of a minority as a safety valve for anti-capitalist sentiment. It functions rather as "a means of selection and trial", identifying those who are prepared, without pretext, to persecute, hunt and murder and thus be bound to the Leader by "the iron chains of a common crime". Hitler, in turn, (a "potential suicide ''par excellence''") recognises only devotion to his own person. A greater number of Germans—perhaps four in ten—wish only to see the back of Hitler and the Nazis. But "unorganised, dispirited and often in despair", very few identified with the submerged political opposition, itself divided and confused. Side-by-side they live with a roughly equal number of Germans who, dreading a further
Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, u ...
, bear "the surrender of personality, religion and private life" under Hitler as a "patriotic sacrifice". Through their generals, these Reich loyalists might eventually seek terms with the Allies, but Haffner urged caution. Anything less than a decisive break with the ''status quo ante'' would merely return to "a latent and passive state" the Reich's animating spirit of aggrandisement and "vulgar worship of force". For there to be security in Europe, Haffner insisted (in original italics) that " he''German Reich must disappear, and the last seventy-five years of Germany history must be erased. The Germans must retrace their steps to the point where they took the wrong path--to the year 1866''" (the year when, on the battlefield of Königgrätz, Prussia removed Austrian protection from the smaller German states). Articulating a thesis he was to defend at length in his last (dictated) work, ''Von Bismarck zu Hitler'' (1987), Haffner maintained that "''No peace is conceivable with the Prussian Reich which was born at that time, and whose last logical expression is no other than Nazi Germany''". Germany should be returned to an historical pattern of regional states bound by confederal arrangements that are European and not exclusively national. At the same time, Haffner admitted that part of the attraction for Germans would be that, repurposed as Bavarians, Rhinelanders and Saxons, they might escape Allied retribution. "We cannot", he reasoned, "both get rid of the German Reich and, identifying its 'Succession States', punish them for its sins". If the Allies wished the Reich mentality to die--"of which there was every possibility after the catastrophe of Nazism"—then the new states had to be given "a fair chance".


Churchill

There was a story that
Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1 ...
ordered every member of his war cabinet to read Haffner's book. If true, the regard would have been mutual. Of all his subsequent works, Haffner was to say that his short biography, ''Winston Churchill'' (1967), was his favourite. When in 1965 Churchill died, Sebastian Haffner wrote "it seemed as if not a mere mortal was buried, but English history itself". Yet Haffner was disappointed that Churchill did not take up his ideas for a German Freedom Legion, a German academy in exile and a German committee. The Prime Minister was prepared to use anti-Nazi Germans as advisors, technical experts and agents in the special forces, but there was to be no London equivalent of the Moscow-based "
National Committee for a Free Germany The National Committee for a Free Germany (german: Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland, or NKFD) was a German anti-Nazi organization that operated in the Soviet Union during World War II.The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occ ...
". Neal Ascherson nonetheless believes it possible that some of Churchill's ideas about post-war Germany had "roots in sections of Haffner's book".


Post-war journalism


Germany's division

In 1941 David Astor invited Haffner to join ''
The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'' as political correspondent, while Edward Hulton recruited him as contributor to the popular '' Picture Post''. ''The Observer's'' foreign editor and an influential opinion former in England, in 1948 Haffner became a naturalised British citizen. Through the so-called Shanghai Club (named after a restaurant in Soho), he associated with left-leaning and emigre journalists, among them
E. H. Carr Edward Hallett Carr (28 June 1892 – 3 November 1982) was a British historian, diplomat, journalist and international relations theorist, and an opponent of empiricism within historiography. Carr was best known for '' A History of Soviet Rus ...
, George
Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitari ...
, Isaac Deutscher, Barbara Ward and
Jon Kimche Jon Kimche (17 June 1909 – 9 March 1994) was a journalist and historian. A Swiss Jew, he arrived in England at the age of 12, becoming involved in the Independent Labour Party as a young man. In 1934–35, he worked with George Orwell in ...
On his return from war service, David Astor took a more active part in editorial matters, and there were clashes of opinion. Following a
McCarthy-era McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origi ...
trip to the United States, Haffner had soured on the
North Atlantic alliance The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
, and (with Paul Sethe of '' Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'') he was unwilling to dismiss as bluff the March 1952 Stalin Note with its offer of Soviet withdrawal in return for German neutrality. In 1954 he accepted a financially generous offer to transfer to Berlin as ''The Observer's'' German correspondent. In Germany, Haffner also wrote for the conservative national ''Die Welt,'' then edited by the
Kapp Putsch The Kapp Putsch (), also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch (), was an attempted coup against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz, its goal was to undo the ...
veteran,
Hans Zehrer Hans Zehrer ( pseud. Hans Thomas; 22 June 1899 – 23 August 1966) was a German philosopher and journalist. He edited a leading right-wing journal, ''Die Tat'', and founded the ''Tat'' Circle. Biography Zehrer was born in Berlin to a postal offi ...
. The publisher Axel Springer permitted discussion of neutrality (the " Austrian solution ") as the basis for a final German settlement, a prospect not definitively dismissed until the construction in September 1961 of the
Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...
. Haffner joined Springer in railing against the ineffectiveness of the western allied response to the sealing of the
Soviet Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
in Germany, a stance that occasioned his final break with Astor and ''The Observer''. Consistent with his post-Reich vision of 1940, Haffner was not, in principle, opposed to the existence of a second German state. In 1960 he had speculated on the future of the
GDR East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
as a "Prussian Free State" giving play, perhaps, to the National Bolshevist ideas Ernst Niekisch. After the consolidation of the wall, and in a break with Axel Springer, Haffner was to see no alternative but to formally recognise a Soviet-Bloc East Germany. From 1969 he supported the '' Ostpolitik'' of the new Social-Democratic Chancellor,
Willy Brandt Willy Brandt (; born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician and statesman who was leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 1964 to 1987 and served as the chancellor of West Ge ...
.


The

Spiegel affair The ''Spiegel'' affair of 1962 (german: link=no, Spiegel-Affäre) was a political scandal in West Germany. It stemmed from the publication of an article in ''Der Spiegel,'' West Germany's weekly political magazine, about the nation's defense f ...

On 26 October 1962, the
Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...
offices of ''
Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
'' were raided and closed by police. The publisher,
Rudolf Augstein Rudolf Karl Augstein (5 November 1923 – 7 November 2002) was a German journalist, editor, publicist, and politician. He was one of the most influential German journalists, founder and part-owner of ''Der Spiegel'' magazine. As a politician, he ...
, along with the weekly's two editors-in-chief and a reporter were arrested. Defence minister
Franz Josef Strauss Franz Josef Strauss ( ; 6 September 1915 – 3 October 1988) was a German politician. He was the long-time chairman of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) from 1961 until 1988, member of the federal cabinet in different positions between ...
levelled accusations of treason (''Landesverrat'') in respect of an article detailing a NATO projection of "imaginable chaos" in the event of a Soviet nuclear strike and criticising the Government's lack of preparedness. In a statement he was later obliged to recant, Strauss denied himself initiating the police action. Springer offered its presses, teletypes and office space so ''Der Spiegel'' could keep on publishing. But it was at the cost of any further access to Die Welt that Haffner, in the ''
Süddeutsche Zeitung The ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' (; ), published in Munich, Bavaria, is one of the largest daily newspapers in Germany. The tone of SZ is mainly described as centre-left, liberal, social-liberal, progressive-liberal, and social-democrat. History ...
'' (8 November 1962), pronounced on the violation of press freedom and constitutional norms. Invoking the spectre of the republican collapse in 1933, Haffner argued that German democracy was in the balance. Identified with what was to be seen a key turning point in the culture of the Federal Republic away from deference demanded by the old ''Obrigkeitsstaat'' (authoritarian state) Haffner found a new, and more liberal, readership with the ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,'' and with the weeklies ''Die Zeit'' and ''Stern'' magazine.


Student protest and anti-Springer campaign

Together with young writers and activists of a new post-war generation, Haffner believed that the Federal Republic was paying a price for Adenauer's pragmatic refusal to press for an accounting of Nazi-era crimes. With implicit reference to these, in ''Stern'' Haffner denounced as "a systematic, cold-blooded, planned pogrom" a police riot in
West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
in which a student protester, Benno Ohnesorg, was shot dead. On June 2, 1967, rallied by
Ulrike Meinhof Ulrike Marie Meinhof (7 October 1934 – 9 May 1976) was a German left-wing journalist and founding member of the Red Army Faction (RAF) in West Germany, commonly referred to in the press as the "Baader-Meinhof gang". She is the reputed author ...
's exposure in the
New Left The New Left was a broad political movement mainly in the 1960s and 1970s consisting of activists in the Western world who campaigned for a broad range of social issues such as civil and political rights, environmentalism, feminism, gay rights, g ...
journal ''konkret'' of German complicity in the Pahlavi dictatorship, students had demonstrated against the visit of the Shah of Iran. When Iranian counter-demonstrators, including agents of the Shah's intelligence service, attacked the students, the police joined the affray beating the students into side street where an officer fired his side arm.Stasi Archive Surprise: East German Spy Shot West Berlin Martyr
. ''
Spiegel Online International ''Der Spiegel (online)'' is a German news website. Before the renaming in January 2020, the website's name was ''Spiegel Online'' (short ''SPON''). It was founded in 1994 as the online offshoot of the German news magazine, ''Der Spiegel'', wit ...
''. spiegel.de. 22 May 2009. Retrieved 09/02/2021.
Contributing himself to ''konkret'' (later revealed to have been subsidised by the East Germans) Haffner wrote that "with the Student pogrom of 2 June 1967 fascism in West Berlin had thrown off its mask". Increasingly focussed on the
war in Vietnam The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam a ...
("the Auschwitz of the young generation"), many, including Haffner's daughter
Sarah Sarah (born Sarai) is a biblical matriarch and prophetess, a major figure in Abrahamic religions. While different Abrahamic faiths portray her differently, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all depict her character similarly, as that of a piou ...
, directed their anger at his former employer, Axel Springer. After the attempted assassination the socialist student leader Rudi Dutschke on April 11, 1968, Springer titles (''Bild'' : “Students threaten: We shoot back", "Stop the terror of the Young Reds-Now!") were again accused of incitement. The ''Morgenpost'' responded to a protest blockade of its presses by itself proposing parallels to '' Kristallnacht'': "back then the Jews were robbed of their property; today it is the Springer concern that is threatened".


Ulrike Meinhof

Haffner's contribution to this pushing of "differences to the top" ("Zuspitzung") was not appreciated by Brandt's Social Democrats or by ''Stern'', and especially not after Meinhof took what she regarded as a next logical step in a struggle with "fascism". "Protest", she wrote, "is when I say I don’t like this. Resistance is when I put an end to what I don’t like.” On 19 May 1972, the Red Army Faction (the "Baader Meinhof Gang") bombed Springer's Hamburg headquarters injuring 17 people. A week before they had claimed their first victim, an American officer killed by a pipe-bomb at U.S. military headquarters in
Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
. Like the novelists Heinrich Böll and
Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of Da ...
, Haffner did not resist the temptation, in placing Meinhof's deeds in perspective, of a further swipe at Bild; "no one", he argued, had done more to plant "the seeds of violence" than Springer journalism. Yet Haffner expressed dismay at the number of people on the left he believed might, if asked, offer a fugitive Ulrike a bed for the night and breakfast. Nothing, he warned, could serve to discredit the left and a commitment to reform more than romanticising terrorism.


Celebrating the new liberalism

Haffner did not agree with the stringency of some of the security measures endorsed by the Brandt government. He objected to the 1972 ''Radikalenerlass'' (Anti-Radical Decree) that instituted a '' Berufsverbot'' barring certain public-sector occupations to persons with "extreme" political views. Marxists, he argued, must be able to be teachers and university professors "not because they are liberals, but because we are liberals" (''Stern,'' 12 March 1972). However, Haffner no longer referred to police "pogroms" or to regime neo-fascism. In the 1960s the police may have beaten demonstrators on the streets, but no one, he countered, ever "heard of them having tortured them".Schmied (2010), p, 394 West Germany had changed. It may not have done enough to come to terms with the history of the Reich, but it had, in Haffner's view, "distanced itself from it with a light-footedness that no one had expected". The old authoritarianism, the sense of being a "subject" of the state, was "passé". The atmosphere had become "more liberal, more tolerant". Out of a nationalist, militaristic ''Volk'' there had emerged a comparatively modest, cosmopolitan ("weltbürgerlich") public. Yet for some of Haffner's readers, there was to be a further, and "absurd", ''volte face''.


"Hands off" Franco's Spain

In October 1975, the editorial board of ''Stern'' refused a submission from Haffner on the grounds that it violated the magazine's commitment to a "democratic constitutional order and to progressive-liberal principles". In what was to prove its last use of capital punishment, on 27 September 1975 (just two months before Franco's death) Spain executed two members of the armed Basque
separatist Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seeking greate ...
group
ETA Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...
and three members of the
Revolutionary Antifascist Patriotic Front The Revolutionary Antifascist Patriotic Front (FRAP) (''Frente Revolucionario Antifascista y Patriota'', sometimes also called ''Frente Revolucionario Antifascista y Patriótico'') was a radical Spanish anti-Francoist, Marxist–Leninist revolution ...
(FRAP) for the murder of policemen and civil guards. Not only did Haffner refuse to join the general international condemnation, he appeared positively to defend the Spanish dictatorship. In a piece provocatively titled "Hands off Spain", he argued that Spain had not done badly in its thirty-six years under Franco. There may not have been political freedom, but there had been economic modernisation and progress. To many it appeared that Haffner had overplayed his reputation as a ''provocateur'', an ''enfant terrible''. His readership was reportedly falling: he had already dropped from the
Allensbach Institute The Allensbach Institute, formally the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research or Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Polling (german: Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach), is a private polling institute based in Allensbach, Baden-W ...
's list of leading West-German journalists. Haffner allowed that he may have been moving right while ''Stern'' was moving left. In his last piece in ''Stern'' in October 1975, Haffner maintained he had no regrets in supporting Brandt's Ostpolitik or the regime change from Christian Democrat to Social Democrat. These had been "necessary". But he confessed to some disillusionment. The relaxation of Cold-War tensions had brought little in its wake (the GDR, if anything, had hardened "since we have been nice to them") and internally the BRD, the Federal Republic, had seen better times.


From Bismarck to Hitler

At age 68 Haffner decided to devote himself to his popular commentaries on German history. Already some of his serialisations in ''Stern'' had been worked into best sellers. ''Die verratene Revolution'' (1968), Haffners indictment of Social Democrats in the collapse of 1918 as Reich loyalists, ran into thirteen editions. Like all his work, it remained without footnotes, written for a popular audience (Haffner claimed to hate books you couldn't take to bed). ''Anmerkungen zu Hitler'' (1978) (published in English as '' The Meaning of Hitler'') sold a million copies. (
Golo Mann Golo Mann (born Angelus Gottfried Thomas Mann; 27 March 1909 – 7 April 1994) was a popular German historian and essayist. Having completed a doctorate in philosophy under Karl Jaspers at Heidelberg, in 1933 he fled Hitler's Germany. He followe ...
called it a "witty, original and clarifying book... excellently suited for discussion in the upper classes of schools") Enlarging on his wartime "psychogram of the Führer" in ''Germany: Jekyll and Hyde'', the book placed Hitler in the shadow of the revolution Ebert and Noske betrayed. Hitler, Haffner conceded, was no Prussian. Prussia had been "a state based on law", and its nationality policies had always "displayed noble toleration and indifference". But summarised in Haffner's final book, ''Von Bismarck zu Hitler'' (1987), the broader thesis remained. Through the "revolutions" of 1918 and of 1933, the Prussian-created Reich had endured with the same animating conviction. Born partly out of its geo-political exposure, it was that the Reich would either be a great power or collapse. Given their experience of this Reich, Haffner was confident that Germany's neighbours never would allow a successor: "alarm bells would go off if a new 80-million-strong power bloc were to rise up again at their borders.”


Death and family

In 1989/90, as Gorbachev scrambled his calculations and the Wall fell, Haffner reportedly feared that the Germans had been tempered less by the traumas of 1945the lessons of which he had tried to draw outthan by consequences of their country's division. He was unsure whether the Germans might not again be gripped by national megalomania. According to his daughter Sarah, the peaceful course of unification pleased him but, perhaps, made him feel more keenly that he had outlived his time. Haffner died on January 2, 1999, at the age of 91. Christa Rotzoll, a journalist whom Haffner had married after he had been widowed in 1969, predeceased him in 1995. Haffner was survived by his two children with Erika Schmidt-Landry.
Sarah Haffner Sarah Haffner (born Margaret Pretzel: 27 February 1940 - 11 March 2018) was a German-British painter, author, and active feminist. In West Berlin she engaged with the protest issues of the 1960s, on occasion alongside her father, the journalist ...
(1940–2018) was a painter and a feminist documentary-film maker. She believed that her own political involvement may have played some part in her father's engagement with the student movement in the 1960s. His son, Oliver Pretzel (1938- ), was Professor of Mathematics at
Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...
. After his father's death he collated the memoir started early in 1939 but abandoned for the more urgent propaganda value of ''Germany: Jekyll & Hyde'', and arranged for its publication as ''Geschichte eines Deutschen''/''Defying Hitler''.


In the recollection of Marcel Reich-Ranicki

Haffner's close friend, the Holocaust-survivor and literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki (1920-2013), remarked that Haffner's books were not only as instructive as his conversation, they were as entertaining. German journalists or historians who lived in exile in England or the United States worked for the press there, Reich-Ranicki suggested, wrote differently than before. Even after their return they wrote in a "clearer, more spirited" style that could be at once more factual and wittier. This, they found out, was a combination "also possible in German".


Selected works

* 1940 ''Germany: Jekyll & Hyde'', Secker and Warburg, London. 2008, ''Germany, Jekyll & Hyde: A Contemprary Account of Nazi Germany''. Abacus, London. * 1941 ''Offensive Against Germany'' – Searchlight Books, London * 1964 ''Die sieben Todsünden des deutschen Reiches im Ersten Weltkrieg''. Nannen Press, Hamburg. * 1967 ''Winston Churchill'', Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg. * 1968 ''Die verratene Revolution – Deutschland 1918/19'',
Stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Ori ...
-Buch, Hamburg. 2006, 13th edition: ''Die deutsche Revolution – 1918/19''. Anaconda Verlag, 2008, * 1978 ''Anmerkungen zu Hitler'', Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main. . '' The Meaning of Hitler'', Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA (1979). , * 1979 ''Preußen ohne Legende'', Gruner & Jahr, Hamburg. 1980 ''The Rise and Fall of Prussia,'' George Weidenfeld, London. * 1980 ''Überlegungen eines Wechselwählers'', Kindler GmbH, München. * 1982 ''Sebastian Haffner zur Zeitgeschichte''. Kindler, Munich. * 1985 ''Im Schatten der Geschichte: Historisch-politische Variationen'',. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart. * 1987 ''Von Bismarck zu Hitler: Ein Rückblick'', Kindler, Munich. . 1989, ''The Ailing Empire'', International Publishing, NY. * 1989 ''Der Teufelspakt: die deutsch-russischen Beziehungen vom Ersten zum Zweiten Weltkrieg''. Manesse Verlag, Zurich. * 1997 ''Zwischen den Kriegen. Essays zur Zeitgeschichte'', Verlag 1900.


Published posthumously

* 2000 ''Geschichte eines Deutschen. Die Erinnerungen 1914–1933''. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich. . ''Defying Hitler: A Memoir'', Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London. * 2000 ''Der Neue Krieg'', Alexander, Berlin. * 2002 ''Die Deutsche Frage: 1950 – 1961: Von der Wiederbewaffnung bis zum Mauerbau'', Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main. * 2003 ''Schreiben für die Freiheit, 1942-1949. Als Journalist im Sturm der Ereignisse.'' Frankfurt-am-Main. * 2004 ''Das Leben der Fußgänger. Feuilletons 1933–1938'', Hanser, Carl GmbH & Co., Munich. * 2016 ''Der Selbstmord des Deutschen Reichs'', Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main.


References

Notes Bibliography * * Jürgen Peter Schmied, ''Sebastian Haffner. Eine Biographie''. C.H. Beck, München 2010, . (Rezension)


External links


"Stern words from Berlin"
published in ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' days after Haffner's death, retelling his life (14 January 1999)
The Nazi Rise to Power Through the Eyes of Sebastian Haffner
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haffner, Sebastian 1907 births 1999 deaths 20th-century German non-fiction writers Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany German anti-fascists German autobiographers German columnists Journalists from Berlin German reporters and correspondents German television presenters Historians of Nazism Writers from Berlin 20th-century German historians German emigrants to England 20th-century German male writers German male non-fiction writers 20th-century pseudonymous writers