I’ve written quite a few times before about Sebastian Haffner’s excellent book Defying Hitler. I suggest everyone read it. Haffner, a young man when Hitler came to power, describes Hitler’s rise in harrowing and insightful psychological detail.
Right now I’ve been thinking of the following passage, which I offer here. It describes an event that occurred in Germany shortly after the Nazi takeover. At that time, Haffner was a young lawyer doing research in the library at his place of employment, the Kammergericht (Berlin’s highest court):
…[T]he intruders had arrived at the library. The door was thrust open and a flood of brown uniforms surged in. In a booming voice, one of them, clearly the leader, shouted, “Non-Aryans must leave the premises immediately.” … Someone … answered, “They’ve already left.” … My heart beat heavily. What should I do, how keep my poise? Just ignore them, do not let them disturb me … I read a few sentences mechanically: “The defendant’s claim that … is true but irrelevant … ”
Meanwhile, a brown shirt approached me and took up position in front of my worktable. “Are you Aryan?” Before I had a chance to think, I said, “Yes.” He took a close look at my nose – and retired. The blood shot to my face. A moment too late I felt the shame, the defeat. I had said “Yes”! Well, in God’s name, I was indeed an “Aryan.” I had not lied; I had allowed something worse to happen. … What a disgrace to buy, with a reply, the right to stay with my document in peace! I had been caught unawares, even now. I had failed my very first test. I could have slapped myself.
As I left the Kammegericht it stood there, gray, cool, and calm as ever, set back from the street in its distinguished setting. There was nothing to show that, as an institution, it had just collapsed. There was also nothing about my appearance to show that I had just suffered a terrible reverse, a defeat that would be almost impossible to make good. A well-dressed man walking down Potsdamer Strasse.
That tells you how extraordinary a writer Haffner was (real name: Raimund Pretzel). He also happened to live through extraordinary times, but although his life was less dramatic that many lives during those turbulent times, he was a keen observer who spared no one, including himself. His “voice” reminds me somewhat of the writing of Primo Levi, another keen observer and fine writer who lived through those same times and whose path led to Auschwitz.
The reason I highlight this passage is that I believe that for Haffner it wasn’t just a moment of historical transition, but one of personal transition as well. The court he had once respected had collapsed, despite outwardly looking the same. And Haffner had suffered a simultaneous disruption. He didn’t collapse, but he knew he had been tried and found himself lacking the internal integrity he might have previously imagined he would have demonstrated under such circumstances. He judged himself harshly, but I don’t judge him harshly. I very much doubt I – or most people – would show any more courage, especially as a young person with so much of life ahead.
But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Or at least part of the problem.
We have been observing the collapse of once-respected institutions that had seemed stable – our legal system being one of them. The fact that it was respected doesn’t mean it was perfect; far from it. But it wasn’t hollowed out. Now it has come very close, and at least half of America seems to think that’s just fine if it’s done in the service of getting Trump.
