Germany Jekyll & Hyde

?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 Germany: Jekyll and Hyde by Sebastian Haffner, author of Defying Hitler, was first published in 1940. It is a brilliantly insightful analysis of Hitler?s Germany and was an alarm call that tried to awaken the British to the true nature of the Nazi regime. Sebastian Haffner, a Berlin-born journalist who emigrated to London in 1938, stressed that Nazi Germany, despite its advanced science and technology, was a throwback to brutal times. He saw Hitler as a psychopath and anti-Semitism as a ?secret sign and binding mystery among Nazis, like a continuous ritual murder?. His insights, published before the attack on Russia, before Auschwitz and before total war, were remarkably penetrating at a time when few understood how horrific the Nazis were.