The Meaning of Hitler

In this succinct, fact-based, insightful analysis of Hitler and his impact on the world, Sebastian Haffner displays his skills as a first-class journalist and a student of German and modern European history. A keen psychologist, he describes the man, the politician, the ideologue, the military leader, the mass-murderer, and ultimately the traitor to his own (adopted) country.


“Mr Haffner ... has exposed better, and more briefly, than anyone else the clockwork of that infernal machine” — Gordon Brook-Shepherd, Sunday Telegraph


“Lucid, informative and provocative.” — Golo Mann, Der Spiegel


“Nothing I have read on the Third Reich has been as valuable as Sebastian Haffner’s Meaning of Hitler” — Manfred Rommel, Stuttgarter Nachrichten


“a stimulating book, brilliant and rich in ideas; in short a masterpiece of historical essay writing.” — Joachim Fest, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung


“This study ... deserves the highest praise. There is nothing of this brevity and depth to inform the younger generation and give those who lived through the era food for thought.” — Peter Diehl-Thiele, Süddeutsche Zeitung


“He circumnavigates the Hitler phenomenon in order to illuminate it from seven different viewpoints, and that in under 200 lucid and precise pages without assuming any prior knowledge.” — Peter Graf Kielmansegg, Münchner Merkur


“not one more biography but an analysis - a most penetrating analysis - of what Hitler was up to in his astonishing career” — A.L. Rowse


“Sebastian Haffner’s book already has received recognition ... as perhaps the best that has dealt with the phenomenon of Hitler and his impact on the 20th century. It is better than Trevor-Roper’s best-seller, The Last Days of Hitler ... a most penetrating analysis of what Hitler was up to in his astonishing career.” — The New Republic


“Tough-minded evaluation of Hitler’s career ... That this book was a best-seller in Germany [43 weeks] indicates that Haffner’s countrymen welcomed this compact, lucid, hard-headed reexamination of contemporary history.” — Publishers Weekly


“Until [1991], as Sebastian Haffner wrote in his short, matchless book The Meaning of Hitler (1978), we had been living in the Europe which Hitler created for us: the split continent and the mutilated, divided Germany.” — Neal Ascherson, The Observer