Customer Reviews

Germany: Jekyll and Hyde: An Eye-Witness Analysis of Nazi Germany

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Sebastian Haffner was the name of a German journalist who emigrated in the 1930s. His book will be reissued in US late in 2008.* He argues in this work that nations like England had very little concept of the real causes and triggers points and internal policitics of Germany in the 1930s. By the time this was published the full war had broken out. For example, many say the "truce" with Hitler by Chamberlain in 1938 (allowed annexation of part of Czechoslovakia to Germany without Czechoslovakia's consent) was very bad because it let Hitler know he could "get away with anything" and France and England would not stop him. Haffner argues the real problem was this totally dispirited the internal German resistance. That is, if England had stood up and threatened him back, he would have been on much shakier ground with his own party and inside Germany (even as a dictator). Interesting perspective when you think about world politics and current "difficult" countries. We're constantly aware of what our government can and can't do based on executive branch versus congresss versus polls versus elections, we are less aware of the internal politics of other countries. Haffner gives us this view as of 1939/1940 of a German. Some of Haffner's other works are generally discredited such as his book "conversations with hitler" which most experts feel is not true. Here, I think his argument (however modest Hitler's internal opposition was, it was weakened further by Munich) stands on its own as a perspective of interest.
* It was republished in early 2008 in UK and Europe.