Germany: Jekyll and Hyde — An Eyewitness Analysis of Nazi Germany by Sebastian Haffner (translated from the German by Wilfrid David, with an introduction by Neal Ascherson; 97,000 words)

In this book written in early 1940 in England, Sebastian Haffner, a recent refugee from Nazi Germany, analyzed Hitler, the Nazis, the German population, and German émigrés. His purpose was to help the Allies wage “psychological warfare” against Nazi Germany, to correct misconceptions about the Nazi regime, and to outline “the foundation of future peace” in Europe.

“Sebastian Haffner's book is unmatched as a contemporary analysis of the Third Reich. It is quite remarkable that, writing in 1940, he could produce such acute insights into Hitler’s character and political hold over Germany” — Ian Kershaw

“ ... excellent analysis of Germany's ills ... Deutschland, Deutschland, über Alles, according to [Haffner], is no mere musical fantasy but a national mania, a fixation, which is driving the nation, not as some imagine, to a great and noble destiny, but to damnation ... This is a particularly penetrating study of a phenomenon whose like history has, perhaps, not ever been seen before.” — The New York Times (August 1941)

“Haffner's clear-sighted analysis, applied mainly to the dissection of his fellow Germans, also annihilates any claim by his contemporaries not to have known about Nazi crimes. The nature of Hitler's regime, he says, was well understood; all that is open to debate is the eagerness with which it was supported ... Apocryphally, Churchill told his cabinet to read this book so that they would understand the Nazi threat. We should do likewise to understand how close we came to ignoring it.” — The Observer

“clear-sighted and perspicacious ... This brilliant journalist shows that it was possible to see and to hear and to draw one’s conclusions if one only had the will.” — Süddeutsche Zeitung

“An alarm call trying to awaken the British to the unique nature of Hitler and the Nazi regime ... Remarkably prescient” — J. G. Ballard

“A powerful and sustained text ... it explodes with rhetorical fireworks. Haffner produces a convincing picture of the Nazis, their numbers, their power and the destructive nihilism that united them” — Giles MacDonogh, BBC History