Sebastian Haffner

Sebastian Haffner

Detail of book cover Germany: Jekyll & Hyde
Born Raimund Pretzel
(1907-12-27)27 December 1907
Berlin, German Empire
Died 2 January 1999(1999-01-02) (aged 91)
Berlin, Germany
Occupation Journalist and historian
Nationality Germany
Subject Prussia, Otto von Bismarck, World War I, Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, World War II
Notable works The Meaning of Hitler

Raimund Pretzel (27 December 1907 – 2 January 1999), better known by his pseudonym Sebastian Haffner, was a German journalist and author. He wrote mainly about recent German history. His focus was specifically on the history of the German Reich (1871–1945); his books dealt with the origins and course of the First World War, the failure of the Weimar Republic, and the subsequent rise and fall of Nazi Germany under Hitler. His most known work is The Meaning of Hitler (German: Anmerkungen zu Hitler, 1978), a short biography and analysis of Hitler.

Biography

In 1938 he emigrated from Nazi Germany with his Jewish fiancée to London, where he intended to work as an author and journalist. He encountered difficulties at first since he was hardly able to speak English at the time (but rapidly became remarkably proficient in the language), had no money and no financial support, and his fiancée (who became his wife later on) was pregnant. He adopted the pseudonym Sebastian Haffner so that his family, who remained in Germany, would not be endangered by his writing. It was a combination of Johann Sebastian Bach and of Mozart's Haffner Symphony, later he used the signature of this piece (KV 385) on his vehicle registration plate.

His book Offensive against Germany (1941) was commissioned by George Orwell and T.R. Fyvel for Searchlight Books.[1]

Under the auspices of his mentor, David Astor, Haffner wrote for the London Sunday newspaper, The Observer, and became its editor-in-chief. However, because of differences between Astor, who had become the newspaper's publisher, and the London editorship regarding a divided Germany, he became the German correspondent in Berlin in 1954, a position which he kept until the building of the Berlin Wall.

He then wrote for a German newspaper, Die Welt, until 1962, and from then until 1975 was a columnist for the Stern magazine. Haffner was a frequent guest on the television show Internationaler Frühschoppen (translates roughly to "international morning pint"), hosted by Werner Höfer, and even had his own television program on the German channel Sender Freies Berlin.

Haffner is considered as one of the most successful German authors in the history of the 19th and 20th century writing for a broad, nonacademic audience.

He wrote most of his works in German, some of which have been translated into English, French, Spanish, Hebrew and other languages. The manuscript of Defying Hitler, discovered posthumously by his son, Oliver Pretzel,[2] is a memoir of the Nazis' rise to power, as witnessed by Haffner before he went into exile.

Selected writings

  • 2nd edition: Die deutsche Revolution 1918/1919 – wie war es wirklich? Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Geschichte. München, Kindler Verlag 1979, ISBN 3-463-00738-X
  • 3rd edition: 1918/1919 – eine deutsche Revolution. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1981, ISBN 3-499-17455-3
  • 4th edition: 1918/1919 – eine deutsche Revolution. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1986, ISBN 3-499-17455-3
  • 5th edition: 1918/1919 – eine deutsche Revolution. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1988, ISBN 3-499-17455-3
  • 6th edition: Der Verrat. Deutschland 1918/19. Berlin, Verlag 1900, 1993, ISBN 3-930278-00-6
  • 7th edition: Der Verrat. 1918/1919 – als Deutschland wurde, wie es ist. Berlin, Verlag 1900, 1994, ISBN 3-930278-00-6
  • 8th edition: Der Verrat. 1918/1919 – als Deutschland wurde, wie es ist. Berlin, Verlag 1900, 1995, ISBN 3-930278-00-6
  • 9th edition: Der Verrat. Berlin, Verlag 1900, 2000, ISBN 3-930278-00-6
  • 10th edition: Der Verrat. Deutschland 1918/1919. Berlin, Verlag 1900, 2002, ISBN 3-930278-00-6
  • 11th edition: Die deutsche Revolution – 1918/19. Kindler, 2002, ISBN 3-463-40423-0
  • 12th edition: Die deutsche Revolution – 1918/19. rororo Taschenbücher, 2004, ISBN 3-499-61622-X
  • 13th edition: Die deutsche Revolution – 1918/19. Anaconda Verlag, 2008, ISBN 3-86647-268-4

Bibliography

Notes

  1. ↑ Orwell, George (2010) The Orwell Diaries. Penguin UK At Google Books. Retrieved 18 June 2013.
  2. ↑ "Defying Hitler" by Sebastian Haffner – Salon.com
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