Sunday, 10 June 2007

This morning I took the boys into Watford for some shopping. We returned for an afternoon BBQ. Again, it was very hot. And it stayed that way into the night making sleep almost impossible. I sat up and finished reading Defying Hitler – the extraordinary story of journalist Sebastian Haffner’s life in Germany between 1907 and 1933. He wrote the book in the final months before war broke out in 1939. He despised the Nazis; loathed and despised everything they stood for. Yet for fear of his life and for his loved ones, he wore a Swastika armband, marched with the SA and sang the Horst Wessel Song. He also believed passionately in individual freedom, fled to Britain in 1938, and married a Jewess.

His book describes his personal battle with the Nazi regime, and offers great insights into why the Nazis managed to succeed, at least for a time.