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A review by bookpossum
Defying Hitler: A Memoir by Sebastian Haffner
5.0
A brilliant and clear examination of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis to power in 1930s Germany. It is chilling to see how quickly and thoroughly a group of thugs terrorised and subjugated a whole country.
Towards the end of the book, Haffner and his fellow law students were required to undergo some military training and of course indoctrination, before they could take their final exams, an efficient way of ensuring the judiciary was a part of the system.
They were in uniform and of course marching behind a flag with a swastika on it as part of their training.
"When we came through villages, the people on either side of the road raised their arms to greet the flag, or disappeared quickly in some house entrance. They did this because they had learned that if they did not, we, that is I, would beat them up. It made not the slightest difference that I - and, no doubt, others among us - ourselves fled into entryways to avoid these flags, when we were not marching behind them. Now we were the ones embodying an implicit threat of violence against all bystanders. They greeted the flag or disappeared. For fear of us. For fear of me.
I still feel dizzy when I consider my predicament then. It was the Third Reich in a nutshell."
Later when the group of young men is required to listen to one of Hitler's speeches on the radio, and at the end they all raised their arms in the salute while singing Deutschland uber alles and the Horst Wessel song. "... we all sang or pretended to do so, each one of us the Gestapo of the others."
A powerful and gripping book.
Towards the end of the book, Haffner and his fellow law students were required to undergo some military training and of course indoctrination, before they could take their final exams, an efficient way of ensuring the judiciary was a part of the system.
They were in uniform and of course marching behind a flag with a swastika on it as part of their training.
"When we came through villages, the people on either side of the road raised their arms to greet the flag, or disappeared quickly in some house entrance. They did this because they had learned that if they did not, we, that is I, would beat them up. It made not the slightest difference that I - and, no doubt, others among us - ourselves fled into entryways to avoid these flags, when we were not marching behind them. Now we were the ones embodying an implicit threat of violence against all bystanders. They greeted the flag or disappeared. For fear of us. For fear of me.
I still feel dizzy when I consider my predicament then. It was the Third Reich in a nutshell."
Later when the group of young men is required to listen to one of Hitler's speeches on the radio, and at the end they all raised their arms in the salute while singing Deutschland uber alles and the Horst Wessel song. "... we all sang or pretended to do so, each one of us the Gestapo of the others."
A powerful and gripping book.