About the Author

Sebastian Haffner was born in Berlin in 1907, and died in 1999. In 1938, he was forced to flee to Britain, where he worked as a journalist. In 1954, he returned to Germany and became a distinguished historian and commentator.

Oliver Pretzel, Sebastian Haffner's son, is the translator of this work.

Reviews

"An astonishing memoir...vividly convey[s] the texture of life under an emerging totalitarian regime... [a] masterpiece." --The New York Times Book Review "A masterpiece...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

"An astonishing memoir...vividly convey[s] the texture of life under an emerging totalitarian regime... [a] masterpiece." --The New York Times Book Review "A masterpiece...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