Defying Hitler: A Memoir

by Sebastian Haffner

They have drowned the Germans, who thirst after it, in this alcohol to the point of delirium tremens. They have made all Germans everywhere into comrades, and accustomed them to this narcotic from their earliest age: in the Hitler youth, the SA, the Reichswehr, in thousands of camps and clubs — and in doing this they have driven out something irreplaceable that cannot be compensated for by any amount of happiness. Comradeship is part of war. Like alcohol, it is one of the great comforters and helpers for people who have to live under unbearable, inhuman conditions. It makes the intolerable tolerable. It helps us cope with filth, calamity, and death. It anesthetizes us. It comforts us for the loss of all the amenities of civilization. Indeed, that loss is one of its preconditions. It receives its justification from bitter necessities and terrible sacrifices.