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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
"A generation of young Germans," Haffner writes, "had become accustomed to having the entire content of their lives delivered gratis, so to speak, by the public sphere." The stability that followed Gustav Stresemann's becoming chancellor in 1923 marked "the return of political liberty," which, Haffner writes, Germans regarded "not as a gift, but as a deprivation." Haffner goes on: "The great danger of life in Germany has always been emptiness and boredom ... The menace of monotony hangs, as it has always hung, over the great plains of northern and eastern Germany, with their colorless towns and their all too industrious, efficient, and conscientious business and organizations. With it comes a horror vacui and the yearning for 'salvation': through alcohol, through superstition, or, best of all, through a vast, overpowering, cheap mass intoxication."
If Haffner's tone sounds superior, remember that those words were written by a German who had seen no willingness to resist Hitler either inside or outside his country. The only comparison I can come up with for what follows, Haffner's account of the '30s, is to Don Siegel's 1956 version (the first) of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." That film had originally ended with Kevin McCarthy, having escaped the pod people who had taken over his friends and neighbors, running along a highway yelling "They're here! You're next!" at the passing cars. The studio considered that too scary a finish so a prologue and epilogue were added. The movie ends with a close-up of McCarthy in the care of doctors, a sort of desperate relief on his face as he realizes these people believe his story and are about to take a stand against the invaders.
Haffner's story is one of having the institutions of day-to-day life and the people who populate them replaced by obscene parodies of the originals. In the Siegel film, the replacements conduct themselves with a murderous placidity. In Haffner's book, the people are in the grip of cheap mass intoxication. Some join the Nazi Party merely to survive (these joiners were, Haffner writes, ridiculed by the Nazi faithful); others, like the townspeople in Siegel's film who succumb to the pods, join because it offers relief, a way to stop struggling against the inevitable, or a means of revealing the true selves they have kept hidden, that they may not have even realized they possessed.
If by now the incidents that follow are familiar -- the intimidation, the erosion of press freedom, violence in the streets, people fleeing or attempting to flee -- it's their novelty to Haffner that carries the book, the distorting mirror effect of the degradation of the ideas of freedom and individuality that should be the very stuff of everyday life. And at the book's end (Haffner never finished writing it), Haffner sees how easy it is to get swept up in the spirit that was taking over Germany.
It's announced that all law candidates (including Haffner) must, before taking their final exams, attend training camps for ideological indoctrination and to perform military exercises. Haffner goes off with trepidation, determined to keep to himself lest he reveal his true political beliefs.
He describes young men -- halfheartedly at first -- taking part in the Heil Hitlers and the singalongs. The change that takes place is subtle, nothing as grotesque or clichéd as a sudden conversion to Nazi ideology. Instead, it's a slow erosion of the "I" (Haffner even drops the word in his narrative) as each personality is subsumed into the whole. "By acceding to the rules of the game that was being played with us, we automatically changed, not quite into Nazis, but certainly into usable Nazi material."
This, then, is the chapter that none of the film versions of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" have given us: what life feels like to the pods, a fleeting taste of how easy it would be to submit, how pleasant to see the world through the eyes of the young Nazi who addresses them one morning: "What dismal faces you're all making, in such glorious weather -- and with such a satisfying occupation." What a relief it would be to sleep.
But of course that relief crumbles for Haffner when he is back home. Some of the young men in camp even arrange a reunion to enjoy a night out in the city and realize with some shame and unease that whatever they shared has dissolved. To extend the science-fiction metaphor, "Defying Hitler" sometimes feels like one of those movies about the last man on earth. The fact that Haffner writes from England, with opposition to Hitler finally about to mobilize into war, is of no comfort to him. It's a pity that Haffner put away the manuscript, never detailing his remaining years in Germany before he left for England. But it's hard to see how he could have gone any further. "Defying Hitler" communicates one of the most profound and absolute feelings of exile that any writer has gotten between covers.
