Defying Hitler: A Memoir

by Sebastian Haffner

and supported his embarrassed father. Amid all the misery, despair, and poverty there was an air of light-headed youthfulness, licentiousness, and carnival. Now, for once, the young had money and the old did not. Moreover, its nature had changed. Its value lasted only a few hours. It was spent as never before or since; and not on the things old people spend their money on. Bars and nightclubs opened in large numbers. Young couples whirled about the streets of the amusement quarters. It was like a Hollywood movie. Everyone was hectically, feverishly searching for love and seizing it without a second thought. Indeed, even love had assumed an inflationary character. Unromantic love was the fashion: carefree, restless, light-hearted promiscuity. Typically, love affairs followed an extremely rapid course, without detours. The young who learned to love in those years eschewed romance and embraced cynicism. I myself and those of my age were not among them. At fifteen or sixteen we were a few years too young. In later years, when we had to entertain our girlfriends with twenty-odd marks’ pocket money, we often secretly envied the older boys who had had their chance at this time. We only caught a glimpse through the keyhole, just enough to preserve a whiff of the perfume of the time forever in our nostrils. To us, it was thrilling to be taken by chance to a wild party; to experience a precocious, exhausting abandon and a slight hangover next day from too many cocktails; to listen t...