Sebastian Haffner Quotes

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A state does not simply fall apart as a result of depression... [Weimar Germany] was not destroyed by economic depression or widespread unemployment, though these naturally contributed to the atmosphere of doom, but because the Weimar Right was resolved to abolish the parliamentary state in favour of a vaguely conceived authoritarian state.

Sebastian Haffner

One cannot overstate the childishness of the ideas that feed and stir the masses. Real ideas must as a rule be simplified to the level of a child's understanding if they are to arouse the masses to historic actions. A childish illusion, fixed in the minds of all children born in a certain decade and hammered home for four years, can easily reappear as a deadly serious political ideology twenty years later.

Sebastian Haffner

Sebastian Haffner

Sebastian Haffner

Born: December 27, 1907

Died: January 2, 1999 (aged 91)

Bio: Raimund Pretzel, better known by his pseudonym Sebastian Haffner, was a German journalist and author. He wrote mainly about recent German history.

Known for:

The Meaning of Hitler (1978)
Geschichte eines Deutschen
Defying Hitler: A Memoir
Historia De Un Aleman
Churchill. Eine Biographie (1996)

Sebastian Haffner on Wikipedia

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