Sebastian Haffner's 1942 Call for Mass Murder

by Mark Weber

One of postwar Germany's most influential writers has been Sebastian Haffner. This successful wordsmith has written half a dozen books on political and historical issues, several of which have been translated into English. His most recent is a highly critical review of Adolf Hitler's life and place in history. The American edition, The Meaning of Hitler, received very favorable reviews in the American press. For many years Haffner contributed a regular column of political commentary to West Germany's leading general-circulation illustrated weekly, Stern.
Haffner's persuasiveness lies in his ability to present liberal-democratic, egalitarian ideas in apparently detached and objective prose. His sober and confident style reassures many otherwise skeptical readers.

But Haffner's real character came through in an extraordinary article published during the Second World War while he was living as an emigré in Britain. In the August 1942 issue of the reputable London monthly World Review, Haffner called for the mass murder of at least half a million young Germans by the victorious Allies at the end of the war. According to his article "The Reintegration of Germany into Europe," the National Socialist revolution of 1933 had divorced Germany from Christian European civilization. An Allied victory in the World War would make it possible to restore the prewar order.

Fortunately, Haffner wrote, the "hard core" of Nazi revolutionaries were concentrated in the SS and could therefore be easily liquidated. The SS had become "for all practical purposes the human integration of Nazism. It is Nazism incarnate. With its elimination Nazism may not yet be dead as an idea, but it will be dead as an active political force for the decisive next ten years. Thus the road will be clear for the reconstruction of a Europe embracing Germany. But it must be eliminated first." More