Saxons, they might escape Allied retribution. "We cannot", he reasoned, "both get rid of the German Reich and, identifying its 'Succession States', punish them for its sins". If the Allies wished the Reich mentality to die--"of which there was every possibility after the catastrophe of Nazism"—then the new states had to be given "a fair chance". Churchill There was a story that Churchill ordered every member of his war cabinet to read Haffner's book. If true, the regard would have been mutual. Of all his subsequent works, Haffner was to say that his short biography, Winston Churchill (1967), was his favourite. When in 1965 Churchill died, Sebastian Haffner wrote "it seemed as if not a mere mortal was buried, but English history itself". Yet Haffner was disappointed that Churchill did not take up his ideas for a German Freedom Legion, a German academy in exile and a German committee. The Prime Minister was prepared to use anti-Nazi Germans as advisors, technical experts and agents in the special forces, but there was to be no London equivalent of the Moscow-based "National Committee for a Free Germany". Neal Ascherson nonetheless believes it possible that some of Churchill's ideas about post-war Germany had "roots in sections of Haffner's book". Post-war journalism Germany's division In 1941 David Astor invited Haffner to join The Observer as political correspondent, while Edward Hulton recruited him as contributor to the popular Picture Post. The Observer's foreign editor and an influential opinion former in England, in 1948 Haffner became a naturalised British citizen. Through the so-called Shanghai Club (named after a restaurant in Soho), he associated with left-leaning and emigre journalists, among them E. H. Carr, George Orwell, Isaac Deutscher, Barbara Ward and Jon Kimche On his return from war service, David Astor took a more active part in editorial matters, and there were clashes of opinion. Following a McCarthy-era trip to the United States, Haffner had soured on the North Atlantic alliance, and (with Paul Sethe of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) he was unwilling to dismiss as bluff the March 1952 Stalin Note with its offer of Soviet withdrawal in return for German neutrality. In 1954 he accepted a financially generous offer to transfer to Berlin as The Observer's German correspondent. In Germany, Haffner also wrote for the conservative national Die Welt, then edited by the Kapp Putsch veteran, Hans Zehrer. The publisher Axel Springer permitted discussion of neutrality