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Sebastian Haffner
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German journalist and author (1907–1999)
OverviewAI-generated
Sebastian Haffner, born Raimund Werner Martin Pretzel in 1907, was a German journalist, historian, television presenter, and jurist. He wrote in German and English and was educated at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His professional affiliations included employment with The Observer, Die Welt, and Stern. He resided in London and Berlin during his career.
Haffner received the Heinrich Heine Prize and authored notable works such as The Meaning of Hitler, Zwecklegenden, Zwischen den Kriegen, 1918/19, Anmerkungen zu Hitler, and Churchill. He died in Berlin in 1999. His relatives included Kurt Hirsch, and he had a child named Sarah Haffner.
Synthesized by Vinony from 25 facts across 2 sources: Wikidata, Open Library. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Person · Open Library
- Born
- 27 December 1907
- Died
- 2 February 1999
- Works
- 56
Top works
- Zwecklegenden
- Zwischen den Kriegen
- 1918/19
- Anmerkungen zu Hitler
- Churchill
via Open Library + Wikidata
Key facts
- Born
- Raimund Pretzel , ( 1907-12-27 ) 27 December 1907, Berlin , German Empire
- Died
- 2 January 1999 (1999-01-02) (aged 91), Berlin, Germany
- Occupation
- Journalist and historian
- Subject
- Prussia , Otto von Bismarck , World War I , Nazi Germany , Adolf Hitler , World War II
- Children
- Oliver Pretzel; Sarah Haffner
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- Sebastian
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United Kingdom
- Place of birth
- Moabit
- Place of death
- Berlin
- Child
- Sarah Haffner
- Occupation
- screenwriter
- Employer
- Stern
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Notable work
- The Meaning of Hitler
- Field of work
- journalism
- Image
- Gedenktafel Prenzlauer Allee 227 (Prenz) Sebastian Haffner (cropped).jpg
- Residence
- Berlin
Show 7 more facts
- date of birth
- 1907-12-27
- date of death
- 1999-01-02
- Commons category
- Sebastian Haffner
- birth name
- Raimund Werner Martin Pretzel
- name in native language
- Sebastian Haffner
- P8168
- Paradise
- relative
- Kurt Hirsch
via Wikidata · CC0
~26 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Raimund Pretzel (27 December 1907 – 2 January 1999), better known by his pseudonym Sebastian Haffner, was a German journalist and historian. As an émigré in Britain during World War II, Haffner argued that accommodation was not only impossible with Adolf Hitler but also impossible with the German Reich with which Hitler had gambled. Peace could be secured only by rolling back history and restoring Germany to a network of smaller states. As a journalist in West Germany, Haffner's independence and penchant for provocation precipitated breaks with editors both liberal and conservative. His intervention in the Spiegel affair of 1962, and his contributions to the anti-fascist rhetoric of the student New Left, sharply raised his profile.
After parting ways with Stern magazine in 1975, Haffner produced widely read studies focussed on what he saw as fateful continuities in the history of the German Reich (1871–1945). His posthumously published pre-war memoir, Geschichte eines Deutschen: Die Erinnerungen 1914–1933 ("History of a German", published in English as Defying Hitler: A Memoir) (2003) won him new readers in Germany and abroad. His novel Abschied ("Parting"), published in 2025 after Haffner's children found the manuscript in his desk, reached the top of Der Spiegel's best-seller list after its debut.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Sebastian Haffner” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.