What do you think?
Rate this book
The Unfathomable Ascent: How Hitler Came to Power
The chilling story of Adolf Hitler's eight-year march to the pinnacle of German politics
Adolf Hitler's insurgent path to power from 1925 to 1933 is one of the most dramatic, startling, and important stories in world history. Culminating in Hitler's historic climb to totalitarian reign, this period marks his progression through the shifting political maze of the Weimar Republic and the tumultuous rise of the Nazi Party. Far from an irresistible force of politics, Hitler's passage was one underscored by personal power plays, economic instability, gloating triumphs, and near failures.
A political chapter that spans Germany's wobbly recovery from World War I through years of growing prosperity and crippling depression, this period marks Hitler's unrelenting struggle for control over his radical, raucous movement. It includes brushes with power and quests for revenge, nonstop electioneering and American-style campaign tactics and, for Hitler, moments of immense success and feared humiliation.
Following an improbable, serpentine journey, The Unfathomable Ascent is a complex story with one dangerous climax: Hitler's sweeping ascent into political power, and the western world's descent into historic darkness.
Adolf Hitler's insurgent path to power from 1925 to 1933 is one of the most dramatic, startling, and important stories in world history. Culminating in Hitler's historic climb to totalitarian reign, this period marks his progression through the shifting political maze of the Weimar Republic and the tumultuous rise of the Nazi Party. Far from an irresistible force of politics, Hitler's passage was one underscored by personal power plays, economic instability, gloating triumphs, and near failures.
A political chapter that spans Germany's wobbly recovery from World War I through years of growing prosperity and crippling depression, this period marks Hitler's unrelenting struggle for control over his radical, raucous movement. It includes brushes with power and quests for revenge, nonstop electioneering and American-style campaign tactics and, for Hitler, moments of immense success and feared humiliation.
Following an improbable, serpentine journey, The Unfathomable Ascent is a complex story with one dangerous climax: Hitler's sweeping ascent into political power, and the western world's descent into historic darkness.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published January 14, 2020
86 people are currently reading
549 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
August 21, 2020
“For decades we have struggled to understand the rise to power of [Adolf] Hitler, the accidental politician. Yet the facts, the events, and the politics of his climb are available for examination and telling. They reveal Hitler’s nearly unbelievable journey from beer-hall rabble-rouser to national leader between 1925 and 1933. His serpentine path during the eight years that really mattered shows that, despite his obsessive self-belief, his ascension to power was far from foreordained. His climb was, politically and historically, a concatenation of bluster, accidents, and a train wreck of epic proportions laced with flashes of political skill. These latter included dogged organizing, a brilliant political ground game, and an exceptional rhetorical gift. Hitler’s lawyer and confidant, Hans Frank, later governor-general of occupied Poland, called the Nazi leader’s rise an ‘unfathomable ascent…’”
- Peter Ross Range, The Unfathomable Ascent: How Hitler Came to Power
Adolf Hitler is one of the most recognizably vile human beings to have ever spent time on our shared earth. Since his death in 1945, his name has become nearly synonymous with evil. Yet, despite the breadth of his homicidal impulses, Hitler’s crimes are sadly not one-of-a-kind. History is replete with murderous tyrants whose reputations rest upon a mountain of bones. Indeed, Hitler’s contemporary nemesis – Joseph Stalin – has as much blood on his hands as the German dictator.
The real mystery, then, does not concern what Hitler did, or even how he did it. The mystery is how this unexceptional little man wormed his way into a position where he had any power to act at all. As Peter Ross Range states in The Unfathomable Ascent, Hitler was a “nobody from nowhere.” A failed landscape painter of modest skill, he served in World War I as a messenger, a job not without its dangers, but certainly far safer than toiling in the actual trenches. Following the war – in which he never led anyone, anywhere – he joined a middling political party and, through sheer energy, took over its lead. Despite his rhetorical gifts as a speaker, he was – as Range puts it – an “intellectual magpie,” stealing ideas from others and smashing them together into an ideology.
Somehow, this near-destitute veteran with limited education and limited intellect, rose through the chaos of the Weimar Republic to grasp the helm of one of the world’s great nations. And once he put his hands on that wheel, he took immediate steps to ensure that no one could force him to let go.
The Unfathomable Ascent shows you how this happened in a methodical, step-by-step fashion, in a narrative that clarifies Hitler’s complex pathway without resorting to simplicity, and that provides real insights into its subject’s rise, while remaining an engaging and accessible read.
Range begins the story in 1925. Hitler has just been let out of Landsberg Prison, where he had served a fraction of his sentence for the abortive Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. Though this backstory is covered briefly, you will have to find most of the details about Hitler’s earlier coopting of the Nazi Party in other books (including Range’s own 1924: The Year that Made Hitler). Instead, Range jumps right into the thick of things, as Hitler tries to shore up his leadership of a fractious party that has become even more fractious in his absence.
From this starting point, Range covers the next eight years of Hitler’s political life, culminating in President Paul von Hindenburg appointing Hitler as Chancellor in 1933. A brief summary of the events of those years is not really possible, but since I’m here, I’ll give it a try. In short, it is a rollercoaster ride, with the erratic Hitler in the front car, alternating between unchecked euphoria and suicidal despair; the cretinous Joseph Goebbels in the second car, his adoring gaze unwavering; and the relatively talented Gregor Strasser riding third, helping to create the monster that put a fatal bullet into him during the Night of the Long Knives.
The saga of Hitler’s road to tyranny is told parallel to the troubled Weimar Republic. As Range explains, Hitler and the Nazis were able to achieve some early success by positioning themselves as anti-republic, a stance that stood them well when people were using wheelbarrows to carry enough cash to buy bread, and there was a putsch attempt every week.
That changed during the flowering of the Weimar Republic, when the economy grew stronger and the nightlight was off the chain. In the 1928 election, for instance, the voters showed their satisfaction with the status quo, giving the Nazis only 2% of the vote.
Then came the Great Depression. As America collapsed, so too did American investment in Germany. The economy tumbled, unemployment skyrocketed, and the Nazis were reborn, winning over a hundred seats in parliament in the 1930 election, becoming the nation’s second largest political party. Two years – and a Nazi riot or ten – later, they were the number-one vote getter.
Of course, in a parliamentary system such as the Weimar Republic, where the Chancellor was appointed by the President, and where seats in parliament were apportioned according to the percentage of votes a party received (with no minimum), the Nazis never held an outright electoral majority. Rather, as Range explains, the Nazis topped out at around 37% of the vote, and never got higher (neither did anybody else).
Getting over the final hump required a convoluted series of backroom shenanigans featuring intriguers such as Franz von Papen and Kurt Schleicher who were far too dumb to realize they were not as smart as they believed. Eventually, this conspiracy of nitwits overpowered the will of an aging Hindenburg, who grudgingly let Hitler take control, a control he would not relinquish until the finale of the costliest war ever fought.
Range navigates you through Hitler’s peaks-and-valleys trajectory with aplomb. His writing is clear and wonderfully paced. He keeps the chapters short, which virtually assures there will be no muddling along. At nearly 400-pages of text, this is not a short book, but it goes by extremely fast. The Unfathomable Ascent is also enormously reader-friendly. It contains a few maps, an extensive list of characters, and a timeline, all of which are useful for students of this period, and absolutely necessary if this is your first time dealing with this topic.
While The Unfathomable Ascent is clearly popular history, it is not a synthesis of secondary sources. Range has obviously steeped himself in this material, as attested by the annotated endnotes, explanatory footnotes, and the unconscious ease with which he handles the ins-and-outs of his tale. To be sure, this does not go super-deep into Weimar politics. Range boils things down to their essence, focusing on the major players – the Nazis, the Social Democrats, the Communists – while ignoring all the other minor parties that existed during this time period. I found this to be a sound decision. Recently, I plodded through Peter Longerich’s Hitler, a massive biography that is estimable in many ways. Nonetheless, during Longerich’s recounting of this same period, my eyes glazed over repeatedly, and I lost the thread of what was important, and what was pure minutiae.
The shock and horror of Hitler’s existence has not faded in the seventy-five years since he died the death of a troll in his Berlin bunker. The reason is that he has relevance to our times, to all times, as people and nations flirt with or descend into totalitarianism. The lessons to be drawn from The Unfathomable Ascent are many. There is the realization that upheavals – especially of the economic variety – are opportunities for would-be tyrants. There is also the importance of an organized opposition. In Weimar Germany, the Nazis staked out the right and refused to compromise, while the Communists cornered the left and did likewise. With both ends turned against the middle, the center – to quote Yeats – could not hold. Despite the many opportunities to end Hitler’s political aspirations forever, his enemies could never band together long enough to finish him off. As a consequence, like the antagonist in an endlessly extended horror film franchise, Hitler kept coming back from the dead.
Finally, there is the awareness that one should not be lulled by the improbability of Hitler’s arc. It was, as Range shows, heavily dependent on dumb luck, disorganized opponents, and huge historical forces. That does not necessarily foreclose a repeat, however. To the contrary, it demonstrates that a recurrence always remains a possibility. It does not require a person of quivering genius or breathtaking geopolitical grasp, but a committed and angry individual who gets a break here or there, while the rest of the world is looking elsewhere.
(I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review).
- Peter Ross Range, The Unfathomable Ascent: How Hitler Came to Power
Adolf Hitler is one of the most recognizably vile human beings to have ever spent time on our shared earth. Since his death in 1945, his name has become nearly synonymous with evil. Yet, despite the breadth of his homicidal impulses, Hitler’s crimes are sadly not one-of-a-kind. History is replete with murderous tyrants whose reputations rest upon a mountain of bones. Indeed, Hitler’s contemporary nemesis – Joseph Stalin – has as much blood on his hands as the German dictator.
The real mystery, then, does not concern what Hitler did, or even how he did it. The mystery is how this unexceptional little man wormed his way into a position where he had any power to act at all. As Peter Ross Range states in The Unfathomable Ascent, Hitler was a “nobody from nowhere.” A failed landscape painter of modest skill, he served in World War I as a messenger, a job not without its dangers, but certainly far safer than toiling in the actual trenches. Following the war – in which he never led anyone, anywhere – he joined a middling political party and, through sheer energy, took over its lead. Despite his rhetorical gifts as a speaker, he was – as Range puts it – an “intellectual magpie,” stealing ideas from others and smashing them together into an ideology.
Somehow, this near-destitute veteran with limited education and limited intellect, rose through the chaos of the Weimar Republic to grasp the helm of one of the world’s great nations. And once he put his hands on that wheel, he took immediate steps to ensure that no one could force him to let go.
The Unfathomable Ascent shows you how this happened in a methodical, step-by-step fashion, in a narrative that clarifies Hitler’s complex pathway without resorting to simplicity, and that provides real insights into its subject’s rise, while remaining an engaging and accessible read.
Range begins the story in 1925. Hitler has just been let out of Landsberg Prison, where he had served a fraction of his sentence for the abortive Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. Though this backstory is covered briefly, you will have to find most of the details about Hitler’s earlier coopting of the Nazi Party in other books (including Range’s own 1924: The Year that Made Hitler). Instead, Range jumps right into the thick of things, as Hitler tries to shore up his leadership of a fractious party that has become even more fractious in his absence.
From this starting point, Range covers the next eight years of Hitler’s political life, culminating in President Paul von Hindenburg appointing Hitler as Chancellor in 1933. A brief summary of the events of those years is not really possible, but since I’m here, I’ll give it a try. In short, it is a rollercoaster ride, with the erratic Hitler in the front car, alternating between unchecked euphoria and suicidal despair; the cretinous Joseph Goebbels in the second car, his adoring gaze unwavering; and the relatively talented Gregor Strasser riding third, helping to create the monster that put a fatal bullet into him during the Night of the Long Knives.
The saga of Hitler’s road to tyranny is told parallel to the troubled Weimar Republic. As Range explains, Hitler and the Nazis were able to achieve some early success by positioning themselves as anti-republic, a stance that stood them well when people were using wheelbarrows to carry enough cash to buy bread, and there was a putsch attempt every week.
That changed during the flowering of the Weimar Republic, when the economy grew stronger and the nightlight was off the chain. In the 1928 election, for instance, the voters showed their satisfaction with the status quo, giving the Nazis only 2% of the vote.
Then came the Great Depression. As America collapsed, so too did American investment in Germany. The economy tumbled, unemployment skyrocketed, and the Nazis were reborn, winning over a hundred seats in parliament in the 1930 election, becoming the nation’s second largest political party. Two years – and a Nazi riot or ten – later, they were the number-one vote getter.
Of course, in a parliamentary system such as the Weimar Republic, where the Chancellor was appointed by the President, and where seats in parliament were apportioned according to the percentage of votes a party received (with no minimum), the Nazis never held an outright electoral majority. Rather, as Range explains, the Nazis topped out at around 37% of the vote, and never got higher (neither did anybody else).
Getting over the final hump required a convoluted series of backroom shenanigans featuring intriguers such as Franz von Papen and Kurt Schleicher who were far too dumb to realize they were not as smart as they believed. Eventually, this conspiracy of nitwits overpowered the will of an aging Hindenburg, who grudgingly let Hitler take control, a control he would not relinquish until the finale of the costliest war ever fought.
Range navigates you through Hitler’s peaks-and-valleys trajectory with aplomb. His writing is clear and wonderfully paced. He keeps the chapters short, which virtually assures there will be no muddling along. At nearly 400-pages of text, this is not a short book, but it goes by extremely fast. The Unfathomable Ascent is also enormously reader-friendly. It contains a few maps, an extensive list of characters, and a timeline, all of which are useful for students of this period, and absolutely necessary if this is your first time dealing with this topic.
While The Unfathomable Ascent is clearly popular history, it is not a synthesis of secondary sources. Range has obviously steeped himself in this material, as attested by the annotated endnotes, explanatory footnotes, and the unconscious ease with which he handles the ins-and-outs of his tale. To be sure, this does not go super-deep into Weimar politics. Range boils things down to their essence, focusing on the major players – the Nazis, the Social Democrats, the Communists – while ignoring all the other minor parties that existed during this time period. I found this to be a sound decision. Recently, I plodded through Peter Longerich’s Hitler, a massive biography that is estimable in many ways. Nonetheless, during Longerich’s recounting of this same period, my eyes glazed over repeatedly, and I lost the thread of what was important, and what was pure minutiae.
The shock and horror of Hitler’s existence has not faded in the seventy-five years since he died the death of a troll in his Berlin bunker. The reason is that he has relevance to our times, to all times, as people and nations flirt with or descend into totalitarianism. The lessons to be drawn from The Unfathomable Ascent are many. There is the realization that upheavals – especially of the economic variety – are opportunities for would-be tyrants. There is also the importance of an organized opposition. In Weimar Germany, the Nazis staked out the right and refused to compromise, while the Communists cornered the left and did likewise. With both ends turned against the middle, the center – to quote Yeats – could not hold. Despite the many opportunities to end Hitler’s political aspirations forever, his enemies could never band together long enough to finish him off. As a consequence, like the antagonist in an endlessly extended horror film franchise, Hitler kept coming back from the dead.
Finally, there is the awareness that one should not be lulled by the improbability of Hitler’s arc. It was, as Range shows, heavily dependent on dumb luck, disorganized opponents, and huge historical forces. That does not necessarily foreclose a repeat, however. To the contrary, it demonstrates that a recurrence always remains a possibility. It does not require a person of quivering genius or breathtaking geopolitical grasp, but a committed and angry individual who gets a break here or there, while the rest of the world is looking elsewhere.
(I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review).
January 17, 2021
The book offers the best, in my opinion, explanations behind the question: 'How was it possible that Hitler amassed the total power in Germany?' The reasons are clearly stated and the book reads very well even for a person who has not read extensively on the rise of the Nazis.
January 4, 2022
Book: The Unfathomable Ascent: How Hitler Came to Power
Author: Peter Ross Range
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (12 May 2020)
Language: English
Hardcover: 336 pages
Item Weight: 748 g
Price: 2953/-
“For decades we have struggled to understand the rise to power of Hitler, the accidental politician. Yet the facts, the events, and the politics of his climb are available for examination and telling. They reveal Hitler’s nearly unbelievable journey from beer-hall rabble-rouser to national leader between 1925 and 1933. His serpentine path during the eight years that really mattered shows that, despite his obsessive self-belief, his ascension to power was far from foreordained. His climb was, politically and historically, a concatenation of bluster, accidents, and a train wreck of epic proportions laced with flashes of political skill. These latter included dogged organizing, a brilliant political ground game, and an exceptional rhetorical gift….”
Now where did it all begin?
President Hindenberg who was opposed to Hitler had given the subsequent assurance to Gergor Strasser:
“I gave my word of honour that Bohemian Corporal will never be Chancellor……. I make will make him Postmaster and he can lick my face hundred times a day.”
In spite of that, Hitler was appointed the Chancellor by Hindenberg and that was due to many causes.
Let’s turn back the pages a bit further.
Into five sections has this book been divided:
1) Rebirth and Rebuiding (1925-1928)
2) Reset (1928-29)
3) Turning Point (1930-31)
4) Grasping for Power (1932)
5) Endgame (1933)
Germany was defectively disgraced by the Peace Settlement of 1919. It was impracticable for a self-righteous nation like Germany to forget the loss of her colonies and other compromises in different parts of the world.
Her military strength was absolutely crushed. Her navy was all but wiped out. She was saddled with such a mammoth war indemnity that it was almost unfeasible for her to pay.
The Allied troops continued to be stationed on the German soil up to 1930 and they had to be provided for by Germany.
The miserable behaviour of the French troops who put on airs of conquerors, created a lot of resentment.
All this created an atmosphere which was exploited by Hitler to come to power.
Hitler……..
An upstart from nowhere……. A man who would become Germany’s chancellor and warlord…..
Born in 1889 in a small Austrian town, he would renounce school at the age of 16 and move to Vienna at 18…. and at 24 would end up in Munich, where he would soon sign on as a soldier in the First World War….
Entering politics in 1919, he would take over the miniature German Workers’ Party — rename the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party) — and become a main attraction on Munich’s boiling right-wing political circuit.
In 1923, he would mount a coup d’état that would fail outstandingly. Following a year in prison, he would refind his party, beginning the long march to power.
Eight years of crisscross struggle and contention would follow…….. with near-death experiences and shock triumphs.
He would climb to within grasping distance of the German chancellorship in 1932.
But his star would begin fading.
He would seem to be in decline……… dropping 4 percentage points in a national election, when an improbable series of events in January of 1933 would save him — and make him Germany’s chancellor.
This book tells his story in the best possible unprejudiced and objective manner – almost stoically.
The author writes, “Hitler’s ascension indeed seemed like a magical salvation to many in a country buffeted since 1918 by wartime defeat, national revolution, fractured politics, and grinding economic crisis. To Hitler’s supporters, a rebirth seemed at hand. To others, it was a moment of shock….”
One would do well to remember that Hitler’s own character also helped him to come to power. He was a politician who possessed great resourcefulness. He was a great orator who could control and influence audiences of millions of people. His technique of propaganda helped him to carry the audience with him.
He thundered. He asked for blood. He infused politics with a religious fervour. He was a fanatic in his views and was able to hypnotise all those who came to hear his speeches. The result was that his followers began to swell and ultimately he was led to power.
The character of the German nation also helped him. Most of the people of Germany were not democratic at heart. They cared more for that party which could give them sanctuary and grandeur than for freedom as such. They were sick of the disloyalty and spinelessness of the Republican politicians who had brought the country to ruin.
The Germans wanted a strong man who could take them out of the mess which had been created by the politicians since 1919.
Hitler promised them and they flocked to him.
The declining fervour of Protestantism in Germany circuitously led to the rise of Hitler. Having lost their eagerness in religion, they were in search of some other job of devotion. The Republican regime in Germany was not able to win over their devotion and they found the job in the National Socialism of Hitler.
That added to the strength of Hitler’s party and his followers.
Hitler gave to German nationalism a new life which had been eclipsed by the defeat of 1918. The Germans felt mortified after the events of 1918 and they wanted a strong man who could raise them in the eyes of the world. Such a reassurance was given by Hitler and he was accepted by the people.
Hitler was most verbal about the wrongs of the treaty of Versailles. He censured its provisions in the strongest possible terms. The more he did so, the greater became his esteem with the people who wanted somebody who could interpret their inner feelings to the world.
They found in Hitler the man they wanted and that helped him to come to power.
And he made a lot of promises: -
1) He gave to the Germans a high-sounding programme of 25 points which was a catalogue of promises and promised something to every group of the German nation.
2) He promised protection of property from the communists.
3) He promised protection of labourers against exploitation.
4) He promised protection to consumers against producers.
5) He promised protection to small business men against corporations.
As he promised something to everybody, he was able to secure the support of a large number of people.
The miserable economic condition of the country also helped his rise.
Both the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan failed to solve the economic problems of Germany. In 1919 there started the world-wide economic depression and Germany was also affected. Chancellor Bruning failed to tackle the problems of the country and his Government was styled as “the starvation government.
The number of the unemployed began to increase. There was a lot of economic distress in the country which was exploited by Hitler. The disaster begot 6,000,000 unemployed and general bankruptcy and impoverishment.
Jobless workers flocked to the Communist Party, desperate burghers and peasants joined the NSDAP, whose hysterical. Fuhrer promised prosperity, pride and power through the overthrow of the Weimar Jew Republic and the establishment of glorious Third Reich to be based upon anti-Marxism and Semitism and anti-capitalism and misty National Socialism.
Industrialists and Junkers subsidised the brown-shined Nazi Storm Troopers hoping to make use of them against Communists, Socialists, the trade unions and other threats, real or imaginary, to property and privilege.’
All the above factors were exploited to the maximum by Hitler and his followers began to multiply.
With that, his might and reputation also grew in the country. This is proved by the increasing number of seats captured by the Nazi party from 1924 onwards. In December 1924, the Nazi party won only 14 seats.
In 1930 Hitler polled 6,000,000 votes and secured 107 seats. In July 1932, he more than doubled the number of votes and the seats, securing nearly 14 million votes and 230 seats.
In March 1933, he won 288 seats.
President Hindenburg dismissed Burning from Chancellorship and appointed Von Papen as Chancellor. When Von Papen found that he could not maintain law and order in the country he resigned.
He was succeeded by General Schleicher. Early in 1933 Von Papen made an alliance with Hitler to overthrow Schleicher and urged Hindenberg to appoint Hitler as the Chancellor.
Hitler in reality became Chancellor on 30 January 1933.
On the death of Hindenberg in 1934, he got himself elected the President of Germany and thus combined in himself the offices of the Chancellor and the President till his death in 1945.
He abrogated the Weimar Constitution and himself became the Dictator of Germany.
“It was a stunning turn of events. On a bitterly cold Monday night, Berlin blazed with torchlights and thundered with the cadence of martial drums. It was January 30, 1933, and Nazi Storm Troopers by the tens of thousands, and civilians in nearly equal numbers, were marching through the historic Brandenburg Gate. An excited German radio announcer described the march as “a human river” and “a historic moment whose full meaning is not yet clear to us.” To an American journalist, the scene was the “greatest torchlight procession in German history.”1 Turning up Wilhelmstrasse, the German capital’s main corridor of power, the marchers belted out their national anthem (“Germany, Germany, above all!”), raising their right arms and cheering as they passed the chancellery. In an open second-story window, a man in a dark suit extended his right arm in return. It was Adolf Hitler’s moment of triumph…..”
From 1933 until his death in 1945, Hitler was ‘absolute’ in Germany.
Hitler’s journey is a political cliff-hanger of unexpected twists, turns, and near-death experiences from which the protagonist always recovered through political savvy, astonishing tenacity, raw brutality, and, often enough, pure luck. Hitler was saved by his fanatical self-assurance (his “will”), his native oratorical talent, his instinctive propagandistic skills, an uncanny feel for the mood of the masses, and the choice of a gifted number two man with keen administrative skills.
The Nazi leader profited from a nearly perfect storm of constitutional weaknesses in Germany’s virgin democracy, the profound splintering of the German body politic, the untimely deaths of statesmen who might have thwarted his climb, the onset of the Great Depression, continual underestimation by the political establishment, the woeful incompetence of contemporaneous players on Germany’s political stage, and the craven motives of others at a critical moment.
A nobody from nowhere, Hitler had none of the makings of a public figure.
Almost Shakespearean ……
Why, man, he [Caesar] doth bestride the narrow world
Like a colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates;
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves…..
He was not a working-class activist who rose through the ranks of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD)—as did Friedrich Ebert, the Weimar Republic’s first president. Hitler was a ‘no schooled intellectual’ — as were Marxists Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, leaders of the Spartacist League, which morphed into Germany’s Communist Party (both were murdered during aggressive turmoils in 1919).
Hitler had nothing in common with university-trained businessmen such as Walther Rathenau and Gustav Stresemann, who became the Weimar Republic’s revered foreign ministers.
The unrefined Austrian was barely a captain of industry—as was Alfred Hugenberg, who shouldered his way into politics by building a newspaper empire.
Hitler didn’t spring from the privileged officer corps, as did General Erich Ludendorff and Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who rose to the top of the military before entering politics—Ludendorff as a right-wing reactionary and Hindenburg as Germany’s second president.
There he was….
And this book tells you the hows and whys and wherefores!!! Unfathomable the ascent truly was.
Much recommended.
Author: Peter Ross Range
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (12 May 2020)
Language: English
Hardcover: 336 pages
Item Weight: 748 g
Price: 2953/-
“For decades we have struggled to understand the rise to power of Hitler, the accidental politician. Yet the facts, the events, and the politics of his climb are available for examination and telling. They reveal Hitler’s nearly unbelievable journey from beer-hall rabble-rouser to national leader between 1925 and 1933. His serpentine path during the eight years that really mattered shows that, despite his obsessive self-belief, his ascension to power was far from foreordained. His climb was, politically and historically, a concatenation of bluster, accidents, and a train wreck of epic proportions laced with flashes of political skill. These latter included dogged organizing, a brilliant political ground game, and an exceptional rhetorical gift….”
Now where did it all begin?
President Hindenberg who was opposed to Hitler had given the subsequent assurance to Gergor Strasser:
“I gave my word of honour that Bohemian Corporal will never be Chancellor……. I make will make him Postmaster and he can lick my face hundred times a day.”
In spite of that, Hitler was appointed the Chancellor by Hindenberg and that was due to many causes.
Let’s turn back the pages a bit further.
Into five sections has this book been divided:
1) Rebirth and Rebuiding (1925-1928)
2) Reset (1928-29)
3) Turning Point (1930-31)
4) Grasping for Power (1932)
5) Endgame (1933)
Germany was defectively disgraced by the Peace Settlement of 1919. It was impracticable for a self-righteous nation like Germany to forget the loss of her colonies and other compromises in different parts of the world.
Her military strength was absolutely crushed. Her navy was all but wiped out. She was saddled with such a mammoth war indemnity that it was almost unfeasible for her to pay.
The Allied troops continued to be stationed on the German soil up to 1930 and they had to be provided for by Germany.
The miserable behaviour of the French troops who put on airs of conquerors, created a lot of resentment.
All this created an atmosphere which was exploited by Hitler to come to power.
Hitler……..
An upstart from nowhere……. A man who would become Germany’s chancellor and warlord…..
Born in 1889 in a small Austrian town, he would renounce school at the age of 16 and move to Vienna at 18…. and at 24 would end up in Munich, where he would soon sign on as a soldier in the First World War….
Entering politics in 1919, he would take over the miniature German Workers’ Party — rename the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazi Party) — and become a main attraction on Munich’s boiling right-wing political circuit.
In 1923, he would mount a coup d’état that would fail outstandingly. Following a year in prison, he would refind his party, beginning the long march to power.
Eight years of crisscross struggle and contention would follow…….. with near-death experiences and shock triumphs.
He would climb to within grasping distance of the German chancellorship in 1932.
But his star would begin fading.
He would seem to be in decline……… dropping 4 percentage points in a national election, when an improbable series of events in January of 1933 would save him — and make him Germany’s chancellor.
This book tells his story in the best possible unprejudiced and objective manner – almost stoically.
The author writes, “Hitler’s ascension indeed seemed like a magical salvation to many in a country buffeted since 1918 by wartime defeat, national revolution, fractured politics, and grinding economic crisis. To Hitler’s supporters, a rebirth seemed at hand. To others, it was a moment of shock….”
One would do well to remember that Hitler’s own character also helped him to come to power. He was a politician who possessed great resourcefulness. He was a great orator who could control and influence audiences of millions of people. His technique of propaganda helped him to carry the audience with him.
He thundered. He asked for blood. He infused politics with a religious fervour. He was a fanatic in his views and was able to hypnotise all those who came to hear his speeches. The result was that his followers began to swell and ultimately he was led to power.
The character of the German nation also helped him. Most of the people of Germany were not democratic at heart. They cared more for that party which could give them sanctuary and grandeur than for freedom as such. They were sick of the disloyalty and spinelessness of the Republican politicians who had brought the country to ruin.
The Germans wanted a strong man who could take them out of the mess which had been created by the politicians since 1919.
Hitler promised them and they flocked to him.
The declining fervour of Protestantism in Germany circuitously led to the rise of Hitler. Having lost their eagerness in religion, they were in search of some other job of devotion. The Republican regime in Germany was not able to win over their devotion and they found the job in the National Socialism of Hitler.
That added to the strength of Hitler’s party and his followers.
Hitler gave to German nationalism a new life which had been eclipsed by the defeat of 1918. The Germans felt mortified after the events of 1918 and they wanted a strong man who could raise them in the eyes of the world. Such a reassurance was given by Hitler and he was accepted by the people.
Hitler was most verbal about the wrongs of the treaty of Versailles. He censured its provisions in the strongest possible terms. The more he did so, the greater became his esteem with the people who wanted somebody who could interpret their inner feelings to the world.
They found in Hitler the man they wanted and that helped him to come to power.
And he made a lot of promises: -
1) He gave to the Germans a high-sounding programme of 25 points which was a catalogue of promises and promised something to every group of the German nation.
2) He promised protection of property from the communists.
3) He promised protection of labourers against exploitation.
4) He promised protection to consumers against producers.
5) He promised protection to small business men against corporations.
As he promised something to everybody, he was able to secure the support of a large number of people.
The miserable economic condition of the country also helped his rise.
Both the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan failed to solve the economic problems of Germany. In 1919 there started the world-wide economic depression and Germany was also affected. Chancellor Bruning failed to tackle the problems of the country and his Government was styled as “the starvation government.
The number of the unemployed began to increase. There was a lot of economic distress in the country which was exploited by Hitler. The disaster begot 6,000,000 unemployed and general bankruptcy and impoverishment.
Jobless workers flocked to the Communist Party, desperate burghers and peasants joined the NSDAP, whose hysterical. Fuhrer promised prosperity, pride and power through the overthrow of the Weimar Jew Republic and the establishment of glorious Third Reich to be based upon anti-Marxism and Semitism and anti-capitalism and misty National Socialism.
Industrialists and Junkers subsidised the brown-shined Nazi Storm Troopers hoping to make use of them against Communists, Socialists, the trade unions and other threats, real or imaginary, to property and privilege.’
All the above factors were exploited to the maximum by Hitler and his followers began to multiply.
With that, his might and reputation also grew in the country. This is proved by the increasing number of seats captured by the Nazi party from 1924 onwards. In December 1924, the Nazi party won only 14 seats.
In 1930 Hitler polled 6,000,000 votes and secured 107 seats. In July 1932, he more than doubled the number of votes and the seats, securing nearly 14 million votes and 230 seats.
In March 1933, he won 288 seats.
President Hindenburg dismissed Burning from Chancellorship and appointed Von Papen as Chancellor. When Von Papen found that he could not maintain law and order in the country he resigned.
He was succeeded by General Schleicher. Early in 1933 Von Papen made an alliance with Hitler to overthrow Schleicher and urged Hindenberg to appoint Hitler as the Chancellor.
Hitler in reality became Chancellor on 30 January 1933.
On the death of Hindenberg in 1934, he got himself elected the President of Germany and thus combined in himself the offices of the Chancellor and the President till his death in 1945.
He abrogated the Weimar Constitution and himself became the Dictator of Germany.
“It was a stunning turn of events. On a bitterly cold Monday night, Berlin blazed with torchlights and thundered with the cadence of martial drums. It was January 30, 1933, and Nazi Storm Troopers by the tens of thousands, and civilians in nearly equal numbers, were marching through the historic Brandenburg Gate. An excited German radio announcer described the march as “a human river” and “a historic moment whose full meaning is not yet clear to us.” To an American journalist, the scene was the “greatest torchlight procession in German history.”1 Turning up Wilhelmstrasse, the German capital’s main corridor of power, the marchers belted out their national anthem (“Germany, Germany, above all!”), raising their right arms and cheering as they passed the chancellery. In an open second-story window, a man in a dark suit extended his right arm in return. It was Adolf Hitler’s moment of triumph…..”
From 1933 until his death in 1945, Hitler was ‘absolute’ in Germany.
Hitler’s journey is a political cliff-hanger of unexpected twists, turns, and near-death experiences from which the protagonist always recovered through political savvy, astonishing tenacity, raw brutality, and, often enough, pure luck. Hitler was saved by his fanatical self-assurance (his “will”), his native oratorical talent, his instinctive propagandistic skills, an uncanny feel for the mood of the masses, and the choice of a gifted number two man with keen administrative skills.
The Nazi leader profited from a nearly perfect storm of constitutional weaknesses in Germany’s virgin democracy, the profound splintering of the German body politic, the untimely deaths of statesmen who might have thwarted his climb, the onset of the Great Depression, continual underestimation by the political establishment, the woeful incompetence of contemporaneous players on Germany’s political stage, and the craven motives of others at a critical moment.
A nobody from nowhere, Hitler had none of the makings of a public figure.
Almost Shakespearean ……
Why, man, he [Caesar] doth bestride the narrow world
Like a colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates;
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves…..
He was not a working-class activist who rose through the ranks of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD)—as did Friedrich Ebert, the Weimar Republic’s first president. Hitler was a ‘no schooled intellectual’ — as were Marxists Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, leaders of the Spartacist League, which morphed into Germany’s Communist Party (both were murdered during aggressive turmoils in 1919).
Hitler had nothing in common with university-trained businessmen such as Walther Rathenau and Gustav Stresemann, who became the Weimar Republic’s revered foreign ministers.
The unrefined Austrian was barely a captain of industry—as was Alfred Hugenberg, who shouldered his way into politics by building a newspaper empire.
Hitler didn’t spring from the privileged officer corps, as did General Erich Ludendorff and Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who rose to the top of the military before entering politics—Ludendorff as a right-wing reactionary and Hindenburg as Germany’s second president.
There he was….
And this book tells you the hows and whys and wherefores!!! Unfathomable the ascent truly was.
Much recommended.
August 25, 2020
Hitler's Rise: Timely, Fresh, Rings a Chord on Every Page
Peter Range, whose “1924” drilled down into Hitler's crucial prep period of putsch, trial, jail and the writing of Mein Kampf, follows up here with a deeply researched look at the years after—the unsteady, fateful march to power up to 1932. What Range reminds us is that Hitler didn’t do it with thugs and brownshirts alone, but with canny, “modern,” legal political and propaganda moves that turned a civilized nation into a cult. I’ve read a lot of Hitler bios, from Shirer to Kershaw, and I still found fresh reporting and insights here—small one: no, Hitler didn’t dictate his memoir to Hess, as every other biographer has claimed; he wrote it himself on an American Remington typewriter. Range's main strength is his clear, direct, quasicolloquial writing style, as if your best-informed friend were telling you, over a stein of Dortmunder, how an unfathomable descent into fascism occurred, step by familiar-sounding step—and yes, it could happen here. Lots of books out there on the topic, to understate it, but if I had to recommend a single, compact page-turning read that made me say, I think I understand now, it would be this book.
Peter Range, whose “1924” drilled down into Hitler's crucial prep period of putsch, trial, jail and the writing of Mein Kampf, follows up here with a deeply researched look at the years after—the unsteady, fateful march to power up to 1932. What Range reminds us is that Hitler didn’t do it with thugs and brownshirts alone, but with canny, “modern,” legal political and propaganda moves that turned a civilized nation into a cult. I’ve read a lot of Hitler bios, from Shirer to Kershaw, and I still found fresh reporting and insights here—small one: no, Hitler didn’t dictate his memoir to Hess, as every other biographer has claimed; he wrote it himself on an American Remington typewriter. Range's main strength is his clear, direct, quasicolloquial writing style, as if your best-informed friend were telling you, over a stein of Dortmunder, how an unfathomable descent into fascism occurred, step by familiar-sounding step—and yes, it could happen here. Lots of books out there on the topic, to understate it, but if I had to recommend a single, compact page-turning read that made me say, I think I understand now, it would be this book.
September 19, 2020
An excellent recounting of Adolf Hitler's rise to power from he release from prison after the failed 1923 putsch to his swearing in as chancellor of Germany in 1933. Few outside the party faithful, and not even all of them would have bet on Hitler's chances of achieving power. Hitler not only had to rebuild the party after the failed coup, he had to assert his control against internal rivals, notably Gregor Strasser. An interesting fact I was not aware of, Joseph Goebbels was originally a follower of Strasser, but quickly changed allegiance to Hitler. Goebbels kept a detailed diary, which almost forms a core of the book and may perhaps amplify his contributions, but I think it's fair to say that the secret of Hitler's success rested on his powerful speaking ability and his somewhat maniacal determination to gain power combined with Goebbels' brilliance as a propagandist. Outside the party Hitler was consistently underrated and not taken seriously. Hitler's opening came in 1932, when, despite the Nazi Party losing seats in the Reichstag and being written off as a fading party by many, the conservatives around President Hindenburg thought they could use Hitler to form a strong conservative government, in the mistaken belief that they could control him. Hitler had openly stated that he intended to gain power legally, but then become a dictator. They should have believed him. I would suggest pairing this book with "Munich 1923" by John Dornberg, which covers t he 1923 Munich putsch.
March 11, 2021
Bringing Hitler into your Living Room.
Although we all know the outcome of Adolf Hitler's effect on the world's stage, it is nonetheless absolutely fascinating to live through those early days, when our man was a virtual nobody, going nowhere, affecting no-one.
The author's style is so clever that you feel that you're actually in those beerkeller's yourself, watching the arm-waving, finger-snapping, electrified orator, ripping his fiery, animated horror-show to all and sundry.
Then you get all the political infighting for power of a sad demoralised Germany, but with just the one man determined to rule alone, at all costs.
The various characters that we all know slip in and out of the story, but through the author's slick writing, they virtually come alive in your living room whilst you're trying to eat your evening meal.
If you're keen to know of the Hitler age, then this book is a must; a kick-start to what we all know is on the horizon; the beginnings of the creation of what becomes arguably, the greatest war machine the world has ever seen.
And all of that from a guy who wasn't even German!
Although we all know the outcome of Adolf Hitler's effect on the world's stage, it is nonetheless absolutely fascinating to live through those early days, when our man was a virtual nobody, going nowhere, affecting no-one.
The author's style is so clever that you feel that you're actually in those beerkeller's yourself, watching the arm-waving, finger-snapping, electrified orator, ripping his fiery, animated horror-show to all and sundry.
Then you get all the political infighting for power of a sad demoralised Germany, but with just the one man determined to rule alone, at all costs.
The various characters that we all know slip in and out of the story, but through the author's slick writing, they virtually come alive in your living room whilst you're trying to eat your evening meal.
If you're keen to know of the Hitler age, then this book is a must; a kick-start to what we all know is on the horizon; the beginnings of the creation of what becomes arguably, the greatest war machine the world has ever seen.
And all of that from a guy who wasn't even German!
January 31, 2024
*Audiobook only*
This book goes into great detail and leaves no stone unturned. We are taken basically month by month from his release to prison to his rise to power. I had no idea the level of politics involved from in fighting to fighting other parties. Definitely a go to guide.
The downside
I feel like this book was a sequel to the authors first book because they always refer to hitlers uprising and arrest but never spend much time on it. The book gives SO many details that I feel like it gets lost in the sauce. I would’ve like to have more time spent on why hitler was appealing to the everyday German. Perhaps interviews with former Germans as to why they voted for him or why he wasn’t taken so seriously by so many until 1931?
Good book especially if you read 1924 by this author but picking it up on its own is hard especially if you have limited prior knowledge.
This book goes into great detail and leaves no stone unturned. We are taken basically month by month from his release to prison to his rise to power. I had no idea the level of politics involved from in fighting to fighting other parties. Definitely a go to guide.
The downside
I feel like this book was a sequel to the authors first book because they always refer to hitlers uprising and arrest but never spend much time on it. The book gives SO many details that I feel like it gets lost in the sauce. I would’ve like to have more time spent on why hitler was appealing to the everyday German. Perhaps interviews with former Germans as to why they voted for him or why he wasn’t taken so seriously by so many until 1931?
Good book especially if you read 1924 by this author but picking it up on its own is hard especially if you have limited prior knowledge.
November 17, 2020
I did not think there could be any new information on Hitler and his rise to power but I was mistaken. This book was very informative and easy to read. I highly Recommend it
April 3, 2025
Felt much better paced in the beginning. I get you have to draw it out as more nuances come in but could have kept it consistent. As for the last 50 pages, they were more engaging than the rest. Not on topic wise, just written explanation wise. Maybe it was because I wasn’t waiting for Blake anymore and I could read more freely?
Read
January 16, 2022"Hitler pounded out Mein Kampf " with two fingers on his little typewriter."[1]
"If twelve or fifteen thousand Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas . . . the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain."
—Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
"Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, indeed, but with a false consciousness. The real motives impelling him to remain unknown to him. Otherwise, it would not be an ideological process at all. Hence, he imagines false or apparent motives." [2]
"When a state turns fascist, it does not only mean that the forms and methods of government are changed in accordance with the patterns set by Mussolini – the changes in this sphere ultimately play a minor role – but it means, primarily and above all, that the workers' organizations are annihilated; that the proletariat is reduced to an amorphous state; and that a system of administration is created which penetrates deeply into the masses and which serves to frustrate the independent crystallization of the proletariat. Therein precisely is the gist of fascism".
Leon Trotsky, What Next? Vital Questions for the German Proletariat[3]
When researching for this review, my first thought was did we need another biography of Hitler?. At the last count, it was estimated that there were nearly twenty thousand biographies, but this book changed my mind. Ross Range's political biography is an extremely well researched and thought-provoking political analysis of how Hitler came to power.
I want to say that I have been following Ross Range's work for decades and that this was my area of expertise, but I would be lying. I was drawn to this book by the extremely interesting and important interview with Ross Range by David North on behalf of the World Socialist Website[4]. Significantly, Mr Range agreed to the interview, although he does not share the political views of the World Socialist Website, it is a sign that broad layers of the middle class and, for that matter, the working class are starting to seek answers to today's problems through learning the lessons of the past.
It has not always been the case that the I.C.F.I. (International Committee of the Fourth International) has promoted, let alone sell, books of this sort on their media platforms. In the past, if a book was important for the development of the movement, it was discussed internally. In my own experience, I can remember one important book being discussed, and that was by Eric Hobsbawm's Nations and Nationalism.[5] I think this is an important change. The Marxist critique of the 1619 project is a hugely important event, and the collaboration with leading historians of the American revolution and the promotion of their books on Mehring Books[6] is extremely important and groundbreaking.
It is eighty-eight years since Hitler came to power. It would seem the purpose of Ross Range's book is to learn the lessons of that period to prevent it from happening again.
President Paul von Hindenburg gave Hitler power. During his twelve years as German chancellor, as Peter Swartz eloquently points out, "the Hitler regime committed crimes never previously witnessed by mankind. It smashed the organized labour movement, subjected the country to a totalitarian dictatorship, destroyed Europe in an unprovoked war of aggression, and murdered millions of Jews, Roma and other minorities. January 30, 1933, was a historic turning point. Before then, barbarism and antisemitism had been considered traits of economic and cultural backwardness. In 1933, however, the elite of a country that was highly developed both economically and culturally handed over power to a barbaric anti-Semite whose party relied on the dregs of society.[7]
While predominantly a political biography of Hitler and the rise of German fascism, Ross Range does not shy away from showing the terrible economic crisis that paved the way for Hitler to come to power. As Peter Schwarz again points out, "The source of this crisis lay in the irresolvable contradictions of German and international capitalism. The consequences of World War I and the onset of the global economic crisis in 1929 had ruined broad layers of the working class and middle class. German society was deeply divided; democracy existed only in name. The Weimar Republic survived based on emergency decrees and presidential cabinets as it headed towards a social explosion".[8]
This book is a very rare breed in that it contains a masterful political analysis of the rise of Hitlerite Fascism. It has an almost novel-like pace which is the hallmark of good narrative-driven historiography. His book is meticulously researched. Ross Range has deep mined and ransacked many German archives, and many of his sources have been translated into English from the German originals, probably for the first time.
Many things separate Ross Range's work from other historiographies. He does not believe that Hitler's antisemitism was fully developed during his pre-war Vienna period. In his book, Mein Kampf, Hitler said he was stimulated in his hatred of Jews because they were walking around Vienna, saying they were "an apparition in a black caftan and black hair locks".It is true that Hitler early on had a murderous hatred of Jews.
But as Konrad Heiden points out, Hitler "hated the whole great sphere of human existence which is devoted to the regular transference of energy into product; and he hated the men who had let themselves be caught and crushed in this process of production. All his life, the workers were for him a picture of horror, a dismal gruesome mass, everything which he later said from the speaker's platform to flatter the manual worker was pure lies".[9]
As David North points out in one of his earlier works, "Herein lies the key to an understanding of Hitler's demonic obsession with the Jews. In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained how his conversion to antisemitism flowed from his encounters with the labour movement. It was among the workers that Hitler first came into contact with Jews. He then discovered, to his amazement, that many Jews played prominent roles in the labour movement. "The great light dawned on him," wrote Heiden. "Suddenly, the 'Jewish question' became clear. … The labour movement did not repel him because it was led by Jews; the Jews repelled him because they led the labour movement. One thing is certain, Heiden concluded, "It was not Rothschild, the capitalist, but Karl Marx, the Socialist, who kindled Adolf Hitler's antisemitism."[10]
In his book 1924, Range quotes historian Othmar Plochinger stating that Hitler only started using antisemitism as a political weapon in Munich. Plochinger believes Hitler's antisemitism was "the winning horse in the existing political environment."8
Ross Range does not appear to subscribe to the "great man of history" genre and does not inflate Hitler's intelligence. However, he does make the point that Hitler learnt from his mistakes. According to Ronald Bleier", Hitler's flexibility "was due to a realistic self-appraisal of his extraordinary political, administrative, and rhetorical abilities and his clear understanding of the turbulent politics in which he operated".
Ross Range shows in the book that everything was not plain sailing for the Nazi leader, and on many occasions, he could have been defeated, and his political career ended.
In a Time Magazine article, he elaborates, "Adolf Hitler did not have to come to power. Indeed, during his 13-year quest for leadership of Germany, he almost failed many times. In the end, however, his astonishing success showed how demagoguery could overcome potentially career-ending challenges—and profoundly change history. A determined strongman, not taken seriously by the elites but enabled by a core of passionate supporters, could bend events his way just as his country went into free-fall. Hitler's seemingly improbable ascent is an object lesson in the volatility of history.[11]
This is an extremely valuable book, and I highly recommend it. Ross Range proves that Hitler ascent to power was entirely fathomable. It is, however, not without faults. Ross Range says next to nothing on the betrayals of the worker's movement by Social Democracy and Stalinism. Hindenburg gave political power to a homicidal maniac to save German capitalism from revolution. The monstrous betrayals carried out by Stalinism, and Social democracy paved the way for Hitler to come to power without a single shot being fired.
As David north pointed out in the interview, Ross Range cannot write such a book, but it is down to the Fourth International to write such a book. This new work has to draw heavily on the political writings of the great Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky, whose writings are still prescient for today's political situation. One such book that does that is Why are they Back.
Speaking of the danger of a fascist movement today in Germany, Christoph Vandreier said, "The fascists are not a mass movement but are a hated minority. However, the ruling elite is once again promoting fascism and right-wing ideology in order to suppress opposition to its militarism and worsening social inequality. That is why an independent movement of the working class is the only way to fight this danger."
The working class must learn the lessons of this history. As the writer, Bertolt Brecht warned, "Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again."[12]
Notes
1. Peter Ross Range, 1924: The Year That Made Hitler (New York: Little, Brown, 2016), p. 224-225.2 Range, 224-225.
2. Why Are They Back? Historical Falsification, Political Conspiracy and the Return of Fascism in Germany, Christoph Vandreier-Mehring Books.
3. The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany (Merit S.) Hardcover – December 1 1970
About the Author
Peter Ross Range is a world-renowned journalist and author of numerous books. In addition to The Unfathomable Ascent: How Hitler Came to Power (Little, Brown and Company, 2020), he is the author of 1924: The Year That Made Hitler (Little, Brown and Company, 2016).
[1] Despair and Triumph in Hitler's First Miracle Year: A Review-Essay on Peter Ross Range's 1924-by Ronald Bleier-http://desip.igc.org/Bleier-Range-Rev...
[2] Frederick Engels in the The Jewish Question, Abram Leon, The Jewish Question, Pathfinder Press, pp. 234-35
[3] https://www.marxists.org/archive/trot...
[4] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021...
[5] Nations and Nationalism Since 1780, Second Edition: Programme, Myth, Reality (Canto Classics) Paperback – 29 Mar. 2012
[6] https://mehringbooks.co.uk/
[7] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013...
[8] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013...
[9] Konrad Heiden, Der Fuehrer, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1944), p. 58.
[10] The Myth of “Ordinary Germans”: A Review of Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners-https://www.wsws.org/en/special/libra...
[11] https://time.com/5884522/hitler-ascen...
[12] Referring to Arturo Ui (representing Adolf Hitler), in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941)
"If twelve or fifteen thousand Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas . . . the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain."
—Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
"Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously, indeed, but with a false consciousness. The real motives impelling him to remain unknown to him. Otherwise, it would not be an ideological process at all. Hence, he imagines false or apparent motives." [2]
"When a state turns fascist, it does not only mean that the forms and methods of government are changed in accordance with the patterns set by Mussolini – the changes in this sphere ultimately play a minor role – but it means, primarily and above all, that the workers' organizations are annihilated; that the proletariat is reduced to an amorphous state; and that a system of administration is created which penetrates deeply into the masses and which serves to frustrate the independent crystallization of the proletariat. Therein precisely is the gist of fascism".
Leon Trotsky, What Next? Vital Questions for the German Proletariat[3]
When researching for this review, my first thought was did we need another biography of Hitler?. At the last count, it was estimated that there were nearly twenty thousand biographies, but this book changed my mind. Ross Range's political biography is an extremely well researched and thought-provoking political analysis of how Hitler came to power.
I want to say that I have been following Ross Range's work for decades and that this was my area of expertise, but I would be lying. I was drawn to this book by the extremely interesting and important interview with Ross Range by David North on behalf of the World Socialist Website[4]. Significantly, Mr Range agreed to the interview, although he does not share the political views of the World Socialist Website, it is a sign that broad layers of the middle class and, for that matter, the working class are starting to seek answers to today's problems through learning the lessons of the past.
It has not always been the case that the I.C.F.I. (International Committee of the Fourth International) has promoted, let alone sell, books of this sort on their media platforms. In the past, if a book was important for the development of the movement, it was discussed internally. In my own experience, I can remember one important book being discussed, and that was by Eric Hobsbawm's Nations and Nationalism.[5] I think this is an important change. The Marxist critique of the 1619 project is a hugely important event, and the collaboration with leading historians of the American revolution and the promotion of their books on Mehring Books[6] is extremely important and groundbreaking.
It is eighty-eight years since Hitler came to power. It would seem the purpose of Ross Range's book is to learn the lessons of that period to prevent it from happening again.
President Paul von Hindenburg gave Hitler power. During his twelve years as German chancellor, as Peter Swartz eloquently points out, "the Hitler regime committed crimes never previously witnessed by mankind. It smashed the organized labour movement, subjected the country to a totalitarian dictatorship, destroyed Europe in an unprovoked war of aggression, and murdered millions of Jews, Roma and other minorities. January 30, 1933, was a historic turning point. Before then, barbarism and antisemitism had been considered traits of economic and cultural backwardness. In 1933, however, the elite of a country that was highly developed both economically and culturally handed over power to a barbaric anti-Semite whose party relied on the dregs of society.[7]
While predominantly a political biography of Hitler and the rise of German fascism, Ross Range does not shy away from showing the terrible economic crisis that paved the way for Hitler to come to power. As Peter Schwarz again points out, "The source of this crisis lay in the irresolvable contradictions of German and international capitalism. The consequences of World War I and the onset of the global economic crisis in 1929 had ruined broad layers of the working class and middle class. German society was deeply divided; democracy existed only in name. The Weimar Republic survived based on emergency decrees and presidential cabinets as it headed towards a social explosion".[8]
This book is a very rare breed in that it contains a masterful political analysis of the rise of Hitlerite Fascism. It has an almost novel-like pace which is the hallmark of good narrative-driven historiography. His book is meticulously researched. Ross Range has deep mined and ransacked many German archives, and many of his sources have been translated into English from the German originals, probably for the first time.
Many things separate Ross Range's work from other historiographies. He does not believe that Hitler's antisemitism was fully developed during his pre-war Vienna period. In his book, Mein Kampf, Hitler said he was stimulated in his hatred of Jews because they were walking around Vienna, saying they were "an apparition in a black caftan and black hair locks".It is true that Hitler early on had a murderous hatred of Jews.
But as Konrad Heiden points out, Hitler "hated the whole great sphere of human existence which is devoted to the regular transference of energy into product; and he hated the men who had let themselves be caught and crushed in this process of production. All his life, the workers were for him a picture of horror, a dismal gruesome mass, everything which he later said from the speaker's platform to flatter the manual worker was pure lies".[9]
As David North points out in one of his earlier works, "Herein lies the key to an understanding of Hitler's demonic obsession with the Jews. In Mein Kampf, Hitler explained how his conversion to antisemitism flowed from his encounters with the labour movement. It was among the workers that Hitler first came into contact with Jews. He then discovered, to his amazement, that many Jews played prominent roles in the labour movement. "The great light dawned on him," wrote Heiden. "Suddenly, the 'Jewish question' became clear. … The labour movement did not repel him because it was led by Jews; the Jews repelled him because they led the labour movement. One thing is certain, Heiden concluded, "It was not Rothschild, the capitalist, but Karl Marx, the Socialist, who kindled Adolf Hitler's antisemitism."[10]
In his book 1924, Range quotes historian Othmar Plochinger stating that Hitler only started using antisemitism as a political weapon in Munich. Plochinger believes Hitler's antisemitism was "the winning horse in the existing political environment."8
Ross Range does not appear to subscribe to the "great man of history" genre and does not inflate Hitler's intelligence. However, he does make the point that Hitler learnt from his mistakes. According to Ronald Bleier", Hitler's flexibility "was due to a realistic self-appraisal of his extraordinary political, administrative, and rhetorical abilities and his clear understanding of the turbulent politics in which he operated".
Ross Range shows in the book that everything was not plain sailing for the Nazi leader, and on many occasions, he could have been defeated, and his political career ended.
In a Time Magazine article, he elaborates, "Adolf Hitler did not have to come to power. Indeed, during his 13-year quest for leadership of Germany, he almost failed many times. In the end, however, his astonishing success showed how demagoguery could overcome potentially career-ending challenges—and profoundly change history. A determined strongman, not taken seriously by the elites but enabled by a core of passionate supporters, could bend events his way just as his country went into free-fall. Hitler's seemingly improbable ascent is an object lesson in the volatility of history.[11]
This is an extremely valuable book, and I highly recommend it. Ross Range proves that Hitler ascent to power was entirely fathomable. It is, however, not without faults. Ross Range says next to nothing on the betrayals of the worker's movement by Social Democracy and Stalinism. Hindenburg gave political power to a homicidal maniac to save German capitalism from revolution. The monstrous betrayals carried out by Stalinism, and Social democracy paved the way for Hitler to come to power without a single shot being fired.
As David north pointed out in the interview, Ross Range cannot write such a book, but it is down to the Fourth International to write such a book. This new work has to draw heavily on the political writings of the great Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky, whose writings are still prescient for today's political situation. One such book that does that is Why are they Back.
Speaking of the danger of a fascist movement today in Germany, Christoph Vandreier said, "The fascists are not a mass movement but are a hated minority. However, the ruling elite is once again promoting fascism and right-wing ideology in order to suppress opposition to its militarism and worsening social inequality. That is why an independent movement of the working class is the only way to fight this danger."
The working class must learn the lessons of this history. As the writer, Bertolt Brecht warned, "Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men. For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again."[12]
Notes
1. Peter Ross Range, 1924: The Year That Made Hitler (New York: Little, Brown, 2016), p. 224-225.2 Range, 224-225.
2. Why Are They Back? Historical Falsification, Political Conspiracy and the Return of Fascism in Germany, Christoph Vandreier-Mehring Books.
3. The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany (Merit S.) Hardcover – December 1 1970
About the Author
Peter Ross Range is a world-renowned journalist and author of numerous books. In addition to The Unfathomable Ascent: How Hitler Came to Power (Little, Brown and Company, 2020), he is the author of 1924: The Year That Made Hitler (Little, Brown and Company, 2016).
[1] Despair and Triumph in Hitler's First Miracle Year: A Review-Essay on Peter Ross Range's 1924-by Ronald Bleier-http://desip.igc.org/Bleier-Range-Rev...
[2] Frederick Engels in the The Jewish Question, Abram Leon, The Jewish Question, Pathfinder Press, pp. 234-35
[3] https://www.marxists.org/archive/trot...
[4] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021...
[5] Nations and Nationalism Since 1780, Second Edition: Programme, Myth, Reality (Canto Classics) Paperback – 29 Mar. 2012
[6] https://mehringbooks.co.uk/
[7] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013...
[8] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013...
[9] Konrad Heiden, Der Fuehrer, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1944), p. 58.
[10] The Myth of “Ordinary Germans”: A Review of Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners-https://www.wsws.org/en/special/libra...
[11] https://time.com/5884522/hitler-ascen...
[12] Referring to Arturo Ui (representing Adolf Hitler), in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941)
March 30, 2025
I've been avoiding this review a bit because while I do think the book is well done, I still struggled to really enjoy it in the current political climate. It was very informative and felt well-researched with lots of small details that I hadn't heard about before. It's scary how someone that destructive could still come to power and it's crazy just how many things didn't go his way, yet he still managed to rise to the top. This book is very detailed about the various relationships and speed bumps in his rise to power and stops right when he gets to that point, so if you're interested in that stage of his life, definitely give this a try. To me, it was worrying how many parallels can be drawn to current politics and how even big red flags just weren't enough of a warning to avoid a horrific timeframe in the world's history.
December 28, 2023
Vibrant, detailed, suspenseful account of Hitler's rise to power. The perfect companion to the classic miniseries, HITLER: THE RISE OF EVIL. Loaded with backstairs gossip and detailed political analysis!
October 26, 2020
The 15 year (1918-1933) slow motion train wreck that saw Hitler - abated by his gang of thugs and cronies- come to power, clearly and painfully set out. Still unfathomable, but at least you will know exactly how and why after reading this.
August 11, 2020
If you want a better understanding of how Hitler was able to come to power, this book is great. This is a book that shows his ascent wasn’t as quick as he wanted. He was a man labeled a traitor, after trying to overthrow government by force. If anyone thing hadn’t happened, history may have turned out very different but his determination caused so many horrors.
January 17, 2021
Well written. Factual and objective with plenty footnotes to verify sources and where quotes were derived from. Unlike so many books re Hitler, this author doesn't insist on telling you on every page that the guy was a bigot, liar etc.
This book could not be more relevant in today's unsettled climate.
Highly recommend.
This book could not be more relevant in today's unsettled climate.
Highly recommend.
January 27, 2021
I'm not sure why it is, but for the last four years there I've found it really interesting to read stories of evil men who come to power...okay, I've *always* been interested in the history of the Third Reich, on account of my German heritage. I've always wondered how it was that a nation whose culture was so refined, whose accomplishments in science changed the world for the better, could descend into abysmal madness like letting a failed painter and political animal take charge and lead it into the maelstrom of the Second World War and the Holocaust.
"The Unfathomable Ascent" isn't the first book to look exclusively at Adolf Hitler's rise to power, but it's the newest and, as such, has access to materials that might otherwise have not been available to previous profiles of the Nazis' victory in 1933. Plus, it's in many ways a social history of Germany during the Weimar Years, when life wasn't always terrible for those in the country following the end of the First World War (following the uncertainties that led Hitler to attempt his failed putsch in 1923, the economy of Germany had some boom years prior to the onset of the Great Depression). The author, Peter Ross Range, spends a lot of time looking at how, contrary to some histories of this era, the ascension of Hitler was by no means a fait accompli.
Range, whose previous book "1924" was a sharp and incisive breakdown of the single most important year of Hitler's life (his trial for the Munich putsch, imprisonment, and writing of his autobiography/political statement "Mein Kampf"), is a little scattershot at times here, with not so narrow a focus to work with (he's trying to write about the last eight years of the Weimar Republic). But overall, he does a good job of highlighting significant moments in Hitler's rise, such as his return to public speaking, the electoral gains the Nazi Party made in the Reichstag, and the mysterious death of his niece (and possible paramour) and how it could've derailed his rise. Hitler didn't rise to power on his own; forces within the German government and society, never amenable to democracy, had to come together to accept him as their leader (with the mistaken notion that they could "control" him once he was installed as chancellor). Range documents the ways in which the Nazis went from being on the fringes to being in the seat of power, and does a particularly good job in conveying the last-minute negotiations that could've unraveled at any time and produced a much different result for humanity.
Tyrants rarely impose their will on an entire society like Hitler did in Germany and throughout Europe; countless books have been written and will continue to be written about his rise to power and his impact on the world. But "The Unfathomable Ascent" does a good job of conveying how hectic the eight years between his release from prison and his promotion to chancellor of Germany were, and how many times the evil that he unleashed could've been thwarted, if only his threats had been taken seriously.
"The Unfathomable Ascent" isn't the first book to look exclusively at Adolf Hitler's rise to power, but it's the newest and, as such, has access to materials that might otherwise have not been available to previous profiles of the Nazis' victory in 1933. Plus, it's in many ways a social history of Germany during the Weimar Years, when life wasn't always terrible for those in the country following the end of the First World War (following the uncertainties that led Hitler to attempt his failed putsch in 1923, the economy of Germany had some boom years prior to the onset of the Great Depression). The author, Peter Ross Range, spends a lot of time looking at how, contrary to some histories of this era, the ascension of Hitler was by no means a fait accompli.
Range, whose previous book "1924" was a sharp and incisive breakdown of the single most important year of Hitler's life (his trial for the Munich putsch, imprisonment, and writing of his autobiography/political statement "Mein Kampf"), is a little scattershot at times here, with not so narrow a focus to work with (he's trying to write about the last eight years of the Weimar Republic). But overall, he does a good job of highlighting significant moments in Hitler's rise, such as his return to public speaking, the electoral gains the Nazi Party made in the Reichstag, and the mysterious death of his niece (and possible paramour) and how it could've derailed his rise. Hitler didn't rise to power on his own; forces within the German government and society, never amenable to democracy, had to come together to accept him as their leader (with the mistaken notion that they could "control" him once he was installed as chancellor). Range documents the ways in which the Nazis went from being on the fringes to being in the seat of power, and does a particularly good job in conveying the last-minute negotiations that could've unraveled at any time and produced a much different result for humanity.
Tyrants rarely impose their will on an entire society like Hitler did in Germany and throughout Europe; countless books have been written and will continue to be written about his rise to power and his impact on the world. But "The Unfathomable Ascent" does a good job of conveying how hectic the eight years between his release from prison and his promotion to chancellor of Germany were, and how many times the evil that he unleashed could've been thwarted, if only his threats had been taken seriously.
April 24, 2025
I did not manage to finish this book: I stopped about halfway. I did not appreciate the style (very American centered, with as few German word as possible - why use the term Storm Troopers instead of SA or Sturmabteilung?). I guess the level of detail became too fastidious after a while. There is a lot of detail, but we still don’t really understand why a man like Hitler became so popular, or why the fact that he looked nothing like a Aryan was never brought up.
I also realized that the book stops in 1933, when I am also especially interested in the 1933-1939 period.
Thanks to that book, I did realize that 2025 is very different from 1930: the economic situation in Germany was really dire at the time. Also Hitler’s charisma was much greater the Trump’s, and his speech was much more violent. But there are similarities: seasoned politicians and journalists took Hitler for a buffoon until he won the election and then everybody started taking him seriously.
I also realized that the book stops in 1933, when I am also especially interested in the 1933-1939 period.
Thanks to that book, I did realize that 2025 is very different from 1930: the economic situation in Germany was really dire at the time. Also Hitler’s charisma was much greater the Trump’s, and his speech was much more violent. But there are similarities: seasoned politicians and journalists took Hitler for a buffoon until he won the election and then everybody started taking him seriously.
April 27, 2021
This was a long, dense book that was really hard to get through. There were a ton of well-researched facts about everything Hitler-related up until he came into an official power position. However, that's all it was - recitation of facts upon facts upon facts. There was no analysis, no commentary. I was hoping to get a sense of not just the how, but the why, relating to Hitler's rise to power. I could not get a good sense of what the country was feeling and thinking and what really led to Hitler's ascension to power. So, while technically informative, it was not a very enjoyable book to read.
July 11, 2023
Very good indeed. An accessible and frightening account of Hitler and the Nazis' rise, covering the years following Hitler's release from prison in 1924, to his installation as Chancellor by Hindenberg in February 1933.
A number of basic themes emerge. Hitler's genocidal ambitions were well-known from Mein Kampf and from his thousands of campaign speeches. This book demolishes the myth that no one knew what the Nazis represented until they came to power.
From the 1920s onwards, the Nazis had rich backers; these were few to begin with but grew more numerous as the Nazis gained more members and as the prospect of socialist revolution loomed larger. The Nazis came to be seen by the German ruling class - as well as numerous capitalists in America, Britain, etc - as the means to crush communism and establish a nationalist dictatorship.
I recommend this interview between Peter Ross Range and World Socialist Web Site's David North: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xpCZ...
A number of basic themes emerge. Hitler's genocidal ambitions were well-known from Mein Kampf and from his thousands of campaign speeches. This book demolishes the myth that no one knew what the Nazis represented until they came to power.
From the 1920s onwards, the Nazis had rich backers; these were few to begin with but grew more numerous as the Nazis gained more members and as the prospect of socialist revolution loomed larger. The Nazis came to be seen by the German ruling class - as well as numerous capitalists in America, Britain, etc - as the means to crush communism and establish a nationalist dictatorship.
I recommend this interview between Peter Ross Range and World Socialist Web Site's David North: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xpCZ...
February 14, 2021
Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. From this distance of time it is easy to question how a person like Hitler can come to power and do the things he did with relative impunity. He could not have done this alone and, like other books on Hitler, this lacks detail about the individuals that supported and approved of his actions. Make no mistake, this book provides valuable insight into HItler, and any treatise on the whole would have to be multi-volume.
July 25, 2025
This is not a fun book, nor entertaining in any way. It is a well researched, extremely well written and informative book. I read it because someone I read to requested it, someone who wanted to understand anti-semitism. We still do not understand anti-semitism, but we now horribly understand how evil can come into power when nobody is expecting it. Pretty scary stuff in this book. I commend Peter Ross Range for the job he did in creating this book.
September 20, 2020
This one of the darkest, most depressing, but important books i will ever read! In today's ultra turbulent political maelstrom this has a very real and relevant sting! This one will leave a mark on your heart and soul! It is scary because it happened and the world was wounded and scared and shattered for many because of backroom political deals! This is a stunning must read!
June 27, 2025
My previous knowledge on Hitlers rise to power was nothing compared to what this book contains. A real life horror story and numerous things I could’ve never understood before. Definitely worth reading.
July 28, 2025
Outstanding and well worth reading. The unbelievable ascent of Hitler to power was fraught with intrigue, luck, timing and a political miasma that was exploited by a Hitler and the Nazi party in a way that led to his appointment of Germany's Chancellor. From there, well, you know the story.
August 24, 2020
Very detailed about Hitler's rise to power. First book I've read that goes into detail about the relationships he had to make him who he was and the demons he faces.
November 27, 2020
I never knew the "how" of Hitler's rise to power. Very interesting read.
Read
January 1, 2022A must read. Great contemporary relevance
March 21, 2022
This kind of books always scare me more than actual horror books 😳
Read
August 29, 2022Audible Audiobook
March 13, 2023
This book and 1924 together offer a great, propulsive narrative of Hitler's rise.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews