The Gravediggers: 1932, The Last Winter of the Weimar Republic

by Rüdiger Barth, Hauke Friederichs

November 1932. With the German economy in ruins and street battles raging between political factions, the Weimar Republic is in its death throes. Its elderly president Paul von Hindenburg floats above the fray, inscrutably haunting the halls of the Reichstag. In the shadows, would-be saviours of the nation vie for control.

The great rivals are the chancellors Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher. Both are tarnished by the republic's all-too-evident failures. Each man believes he can steal a march on the other by harnessing the increasingly popular National Socialists - while reining in their most alarming elements, naturally. Adolf Hitler has ideas of his own. But if he can't impose discipline on his own rebellious foot-soldiers, what chance does he have of seizing power?

Genres: History, Germany, Nonfiction, European History, Politics, World War II, German Literature

416 pages, Paperback

First published April 25, 2018

About the author

Rüdiger Barth, geboren 1972 in Saarbrücken, hat in Tübingen Zeitgeschichte und Allgemeine Rhetorik studiert. Er arbeitete 15 Jahre lang als Sportredakteur für das Magazin "Stern". Er lebt als Autor in Hamburg.

Reviews

[Geevee · Rating 4 out of 5]

How does Frank Underwood the fictional US president connect to the events that brought Hitler to power in Germany in 1933?

Kevin Spacey's portrayal of a power-hungry politician in House of Cards doing all he can to become president had the authors Rüdiger Barth and Hauke Friedrichs discuss and consider the struggle between Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher over the chancellorship of the Weimar Republic. They concluded that fact was stranger and far more interesting than a blockbusting good fictional drama.

The Gravediggers is their very good account of the events from 17th November 1932 to 30 January 1933 that culminated in Hitler being made Chancellor by Paul von Hindenburg.

Both authors are journalists of long experience and their approach is detailed, measured and very readable. Using numerous contemporary sources such as transcripts and meeting minutes, diaries, letters, government documents including the Chancellery's official accounts, and various newspapers, including those for the Communist, National Socialist, Social Democrat parties, as well as independent and liberal papers. They deliver a daily blow-by-blow account of how the events and the key characters move towards 30th January 1933.

Written at the start of the day are headlines from various newspapers. What follows is then the events and news, including the statements, events and plans as Germany fumbles and stumbles its way from democracy to a dictatorship.

Knowing what happens is of course the fortune of the reader of history, and as one reads each day it is intriguing to see the intrigue and events that create the suspicion (of people, plots and plans) and events. There are violent clashes on the streets, and numerous political speeches that creates a febrile atmosphere both within political circles and in German society. Interspersed with this are small titbits of trivia from a newspaper article that suggest or highlight how the wider German economy, politics and general life are affected by Weimar and the various political parties. Added to this are the thoughts and views from foreign diplomats, authors, journalists as well as figures in German society and business, including art, theatre and film.

I particularly enjoyed this mix of commentary along with the very detailed information on what key players said and thought. Men (they are all male politcians/party members) such as von Schleicher, von Papen, von Hindenburg, Geobbels, von Ribbentrop, Hitler, Hugenburg, Gereke, Meissner, Strasser, and Thälmann to name a few are all alive in these pages. Although, this reader knows what is coming I was gripped and discovering new information.

Messrs Barth and Friederichs have completed a fascinating account of thoose final days of the Weimar republic. To my mind this new volume compliments work by Richard J Evans, Henry Turner Ashby, Peter Longerich, Ian Kershaw, and Volker Ullrich.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hauke Friederichs and Rudiger Barth's The Last Winter of the Weimar Republic (originally published as The Gravediggers) chronicles Germany's final slide into fascism. The economic destitution and political instability of late Weimar ratchets into near-anarchy: civilians are restless, many are out of work or starving, while gangs of Nazis, Communists and other political factions battle in the street. Frederick and Barth's book focuses mostly on the wheeler-dealers in the Republic's cabinet, a group of conservatives whose lassitude, incompetence and contempt for liberalism doomed the country. President Paul von Hindenburg, the "wooden titan" who not-so-secretly pines for the Kaiser's return; Kurt von Schleicher, the last Chancellor of Weimar, an ex-general whose inveterate scheming alienates all potential allies; Franz von Papen, an unprincipled scallywag who's willing to ally with Nazis, conservatives or anyone who might grant him a sliver of power. Not that the Nazis are without their own factions: even as Hitler stands on the cusp of power, he wrangles with disloyal subordinate Gregor Strasser while dealing with the public's dissatisfaction with their increasing violence. Even so, Hitler plays a weak hand strongly: he purges Strasser after the latter contemplates an alliance with Schleicher, uses Joseph Goebbels' propaganda techniques to blame Nazi violence on Communists and their supposed Jewish benefactors and exploits Hindenburg's desire for stability. Ultimately, Germany fell to fascism because its rulers didn't believe in democracy; Hindenburg, Schleicher and Papen preferred repressive order to anarchic freedom, even if the former came from a "Bohemian corporal" shared little of their reactionary worldviews. Better a dead democracy than allowing socialists, communists or limp-wristed liberals a sniff of power.

Fredierechs and Barth capture all this maneuvering, backstabbing and ratcheting tension with crisp narrative pacing. Their book switches between street brawls, Berliners struggling to maintain a sense of normalcy, the bombastic debates and occasional fistfights in the Reichstag and the political scheming among the principles. Both writers are journalists by trade, which does show in their sprinkling of colorful but often irrelevant detail into the background (a few sentences mentioning Leni Riefenstahl or Ernst Lubitsch adds color but little understanding). As well with the book's clipped, almost stream-consciousness paragraphs that sometimes read like a reporter's steno pad ("Christmas Eve. Five degrees. Rain. So much for a White Christmas in Berlin."). The book's stylistic shortcomings are balanced by the authors' command of a dense subject, and their convincing presentation that fascism was far from a foregone conclusion. All the Weimar Republic needed to survive was clearheaded leaders, a functioning government, a public alive to the dangers of extremism and a willingness to check rather than accommodate fascism. Unfortunately, it had none of those things.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have read on the coming to power of the Nazis and, after years of reading about this period it is the first, in a long time, that really made me look at the subject with fresh eyes. It is good to be reminded, perhaps even salutary (I am writing this in February 2025), to be reminded of how much harm can be done by those determined to wreck a democratic polity.

In the case of Weimar it was doubly unfortunate that it was undermined from both the left and the right. While I don't excuse the Communists for blindly following Moscow's dictates there is something particularly repellent in the machinations of those right wing paladins Schleicher, Papen and Hugenberg to destroy the Weimar constitutional set-up and their awe inspiring misplaced confidence that it was they who were 'using' Hitler and not the other way round.

This is a brilliant month-by-month account of how these men saved Hitler from tumbling into history's garbage can as he overplayed his hand and began to lose support. It is the irony that Hitler's support had already peaked and that the foundations of the economic turn-around had been laid. If those on the right had worked with those who truly believed in democracy, the Social Democrats, what a nightmare Germany and Europe could have been saved. But maybe it was a lesson that had to be learnt the hard way.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. I would suggest anyone reading it then read 'February 1933: The Winter of Literature' by Uwe Wittstock which takes thew demise of Weimar into those opening months of 1933 in which the Nazis showed who they really were and who was actually in charge.

A brilliant masterful book that is compulsive reading.

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading about the Weimar Republic is always one of those things that always fills me with such contradictory feelings.
On the one hand, in the aftermath of the destruction of WWII, that such a vibrant and open society filled with art, music, and creativity that was the envy of the world could flourish as it did, is a wonderful achievement. If I possessed that proverbial time machine and could go anywhere in time, the early days of Weimar and a nice coffee at an outdoor cafe in Berlin, would be high on my list.
That Weimar was so short lived, 15 years in practice but far less in actual theory, is a tragedy that historians occasionally chalk up to being unavoidable.
Recent scholarship however seems to indicate that far from the Nazi being the inevitable and irresistible force we believe them to have been, could have been stopped at multiple turns before January 30, 1933 when Paul Von Hindenburg (outspoken in his disdain for Weimar and democracy) inadvertently or maliciously appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor and set Germany and the world down a dark path in history.
“The Gravediggers” restricts its story to the final three months of the Weimar Republic. From mid-November 1932 to that fateful day in January of 1933, it chronicles nearly day by day the events that led up to the Nazi’s seizing power.
Looking at it through the newspaper headlines of each day, stories of average men and women in the streets, and the power brokers of the political parties, we quickly realize that the collapse of the Weimar Republic, beginning to show signs of economic recovery by the end of 1932, was preventable at several critical points.
Far from being ascendant in Weimar’s final days, the Nazi’s were a party in turmoil. Having received crushing losses in elections, hemorrhaging support on the local level via desertions at all levels of the party, inter party strife, and crushing debt, they seemed more likely to disband than ascend to power. That they did seems to be in part because of an unwillingness of their rivals, namely the Social Democrats and Communists to recognize the threat they posed and instead focus their attacks on the Weimar government itself. It quickly became accepted thought, albeit without basis in fact, that Germany was going to devolve into civil war unless a strong character was put in charge of the government. While many found the brutality of the Nazis vulgar, it also cant be understated how much the public despised and was terrified of the foreignness of the Communists. Had the communists forged an alliance with the more respected Social Democrats against Hitler to form a coalition government, could things have ended differently?
Petty ambition by men in the military and government seeking power for themselves also played a factor in that too many saw Hitler as someone who was less dangerous and more malleable inside the government where they could use him to further their own agendas. It would of course turn out to be a fatal reading of a man who far from being a useful idiot, quickly disposed of those who sought to contain him. As a journalist at the time wrote, some wondered who was truly putting who into a cage by making Hitler chancellor.
Finally, I do not want to fall into the trap of comparing the political situation in America today with that of the last days of Weimar as seems to be in vogue these days. Yes there are some striking similarities in the demonization of perceived “outsiders” (immigrants now, the Jews then), a demagogue who trades in abuse and divisiveness (Trump and Hitler), and party factionalism and entrenchment where compromise seems nearly impossible.
America however has a long history history with democracy, compared to Germany’s history of predominantly being a monarchial society. We have strong institutions that are certainly strained but not in immediate danger of breaking. We also have a populace with technology that brings to light government machinations that would have been shrouded in secrecy 75 years ago.
We should not however, ever be complacent. One can imagine that no matter how the ordinary German of 1933 thought of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, very few could have envisioned the misery awaiting them over the next 12 years. Likewise, Weimar remains a warning for all democracies to be vigilant and not wait until the moments when we could have acted, but didn’t, have passed forever into time.

[Calzean · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's interesting to read about the process in which the Nazis got to power. A country in turmoil economically and politically, plenty of fake news, high unemployment, many living in poverty with no access to fresh water, etc. While the Vons and rich still ate lobster went to shows and generally had a fine time.
In this book the authors traced the period of 17 Nov 1932 to 30 Jan 1933 when Hitler takes power. Short chapters each covering a day of events. Events range from the political manoeuvring, various anecdotes, society at night, the experiences of the man in the street and how close the Nazi party came to imploding.
The narrators cover the main players; Papen who was appointed Chancellor then was removed and tried very hard to be reappointed. Schleicher who ousted Papen but failed to cement his position. Hindenburg who did everything to stop Hitler, Strasser who tried to oust Hitler and various Hitler sycophants. Important sections were covered by journalists, a few Jews, a few independent observers and the odd member from the hoi polloi.
Overall the structure and style worked well. A timely reminder how fragile democracy is.

[Edward Champion · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent and gripping synthesis for anyone closely studying the end of the Weimar Republic. Despite being originally written in German, you'd never know this -- given how smooth and compelling the English translation is. By ordering all of the events leading to Hitler's appointment to chancellor in chronological order, this book truly demonstrates how rapidly totalitarianism came together and shows just how much of a Machiavellian bastard Hitler was. I also think this book gave me a better handle on the hapless Franz von Papen, a Nazi scumbag who is very difficult to feel sorry for but someone who clearly didn't realize just how far Hitler was going to go. I can think of any number of current Republicans who are not unlike Papen in the way that they discount the danger of Trump. We cannot allow history to repeat itself. Read this vital book.

[Anneke Visser-van Dijken · Rating 5 out of 5]

Als je de geschiedenis van de Tweede Wereldoorlog niet kent, dan lijkt het of de twee mannen op de cover van De Grafdelvers van Rüdiger Barth & Hauke Friederichs elkaar een hand geven uit beleefdheid. Voor wie de geschiedenis wel kent, ziet aan het gezicht van Von Hindenberg dat hij zo zijn twijfels heeft over Hitler. De titel zegt genoeg. Je weet wat daarmee bedoeld word als je de geschiedenis kent.
Meteen bij het openen van het boek zie je een plattegrond van Berlijn zoals het was in de winter van 1932/33. Je krijgt een idee van waar wat zat, hoe het er toen uitzag. Tijdens het lezen kan je de genoemde gebouwen en straten opzoeken.
De Grafdelvers van Rüdiger Barth & Hauke Friederichs is in dagboekvorm geschreven. Het vertelt het verhaal van de laatste 10 weken van de Weimarrepubliek en geeft een goed beeld van hoe Hitler op een slinkse, doortrapte manier aan de macht kon komen. Wat voor een vies politiek spelletje er werd gespeeld ten gevolge van anderen. Hoe er werd gemanipuleerd en leugens werden verspreid. Hoe een ieder, op een enkeling na die alleen maar aan Hitler dacht, alleen maar aan zijn eigen hachje dacht en niet aan het volk.

Lees verder op https://surfingann.blogspot.com/2018/....

[Ian]

A thorough, chilling look at the three months leading to Adolf Hitler's elevation to the chancellorship of the Weimar Republic. The authors give us a bit of social history, a sense of everyday life in Germany through the winter of 1932-33: unemployment, poverty, and hunger for the masses, high culture and Christmas shopping for the fortunate, street fighting for gangs of leftists, rightists, and moderates, frozen pipes in tenements in poor neighborhoods of Berlin. However, this is a book for those of us who want a day-by-day look at high politics in a democracy whose days were numbered.

The bulk of the narrative is relates interactions between and among the political elites of the late Weimar period. The authors capture the uncertainty enveloping national politics in what would prove to be the last gasp of democracy in interwar Germany. The Nazis figure prominently. We see Hitler strategizing with his lieutenants: as they cope with rifts within the Nazi party/movement; as they watch the financial health of their party organization grow increasingly perilous; and, most ominous, as they deliberate how to respond to inducements from other political leaders to participate in the cabinet and eventually assume the chancellorship.

In addition, we gain a wider window onto the fundamental political challenges facing the Weimar political system in its last days: the aloofness and disingenuousness of its president Paul von Hindenburg, the fractured nature of its party system, its street fights between militias representing every part of the political spectrum, its bureaucracy honeycombed with authoritarian (of various stripes) personalities. Aside from the Nazis themselves, the book's foremost example of a budding authoritarian is Kurt von Schleicher. Schleicher's chancellorship covers the period immediately preceding Hindenburg's invitation to Hitler to assume the office. Schleicher cuts the figure of a consummate insider, having served as defense minister to the preceding chancellor Franz von Papen. Yet to the reader Schleicher appears oblivious, counting his chickens (figuratively) in preparation for a military coup even as the president who appointed him and the chancellor he replaced work behind his back to replace him with the leader of the upstart NSDAP.

On our way out of the weeds: before reading, familiarize yourself with the results of the 1932 elections in Germany, including Hitler's failed presidential bid in March-April and the Reichstag elections in July in which the NSDAP became the largest party (but lacked a majority) in Germany's parliament. A bit of background information will help you appreciate the degree to which electoral and parliamentary politics, also fractured in the Weimar period, were perceived to be particularly intractable by the time the book's narrative begins in mid-November, 1932. The legislature was hamstrung by ideological polarization with even the extremes of left and right divided from with. Rancor played out in the streets, politics was pushed behind closed doors, and governance, in the form of proposals for poor relief and economic recovery, was hardly attempted.

Each chapter features an epigraph consisting of one or more headlines from major newspapers of the day, with major consideration given to the print organs of the NSDAP and the KPD. At first, the authors' (or, translator's) prose was too stilted for me to pick up the flow of events. However, I came to appreciate this style. Composing most chapters with a larger number of shorter paragraphs allows the authors to describe the behaviors, perceptions, and interactions of many relevant political figures. It leaves the authors room to include the perceptions of outside observers of high-level German politics, such as Abraham Plotkin, an American labor organizer and diarist of Jewish descent visiting Germany at the time, as well as major power ambassadors serving in Berlin. It also raises the suspense for the reader, especially in the later chapters.

While I owe this book back to my local library, I am going to refer to it again in the future (certainly before I return it later this week). Our political discourse is beset with lazy, alarmist, and poorly-articulated analogies to past perversions of democratic politics that endowed genocidal fanatics with power and respectability. There are some that deserve attention, such a Timothy Snyder's careful and pragmatic reasoning in On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. Barth and Friederichs leave to us the yeoman's work of deciding what their day-by-day recounting of the collapse of Germany's first democratic experiment should tell us about political order today.

To me it suffices to say the following: we are trained to treat elections as sacrosanct, but elections that lack a decisive outcome will be followed by a high volume of elite bargaining about who is going to get to be in charge of what. We expect opaque horsetrading to happen in the course of governing. Such machinations might decide who gets to wield power. However, if these closed-door intrigues go on for too long the probability of a vicious outsider exploiting everyone else's impatience for political order increases. As we wait for official results of any election, and as we cope with ambiguous and unexpected outcomes, remember to take a deep breath and pick up something horrifying to read.

[Dropbear123 · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5 being very generous and rounding up for Goodreads.

A day by day account of the period that led up to Hitler becoming chancellor of Germany. The book starts on the 17th November 1932 with von Papen resigning and ends on the 30 January 1933 when Hitler became chancellor. Most of the book is focussed on the political intrigues and main figures of this period like Hitler, Hindenburg, Papen, Schleicher etc as well as what the left parties were doing at the same time as well. There is some stuff about ordinary people, what was happening over christmas and the low level violence in the streets (A brownshirt stabbed or a communist killed etc). Each day begins with the headlines of some of the newspapers so you can see what the pro-Nazi or pro-communist newspapers were saying.

The Nazi party is depicted as quite chaotic with lots of infighting between Hitler and Strasser, as well as having severe financial difficulties and discipline issues in their own ranks.

Overall I'd definitely recommend it if interested in the end of the Weimar Republic or the rise of the Nazis.

[Hans Luiten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aanrader. Boek dat, als een filmscript, beschrijft hoe stap voor stap Hitler de macht in 32/33 weet te veroveren dankzij gestuntel, gemanipuleer en totaal onverantwoordelijk optreden van met name Von Papen, Hugenberg, de communisten en andere anti-democraten. Pageturner.

[malin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5*

[Dolf van der Haven · Rating 4 out of 5]

A chronicle of the last few months of the German Weimar Republic, put together from original sources such as newspapers, diaries and private papers. All presented without context, which is annoying at times, but Wikipedia came to the rescue several times to provide background on people and events.
Gradually I started feeling as if I had become part of the events, despite the fragmentary nature of this book. This is quite a positive contrast with a similar chronicle about Mussolini by Antoni Scurati, which I found very tedious.
The parallels with current politics are obvious: extreme polarisation and fact-free propaganda. The main difference is that today we have less hassle from para-military militia that every German political party seemed to have (e.g. SA, Stahlhelmen).
A couple of translation issues can be forgiven.

[Susan Paxton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in Germany under the evocative title Gravediggers, this is an innovatively-formatted look at the last just over two months of the Weimar Republic. Each day starts with newspaper headlines from all sides and then paragraphs on the activities of the day, following common people, journalists, and the men Barth and Frederichs aptly label "the gravediggers" - Hindenberg, the elderly president; von Schleicher, the ambitious general/politician and last chancellor of the Republic; von Papen, the craven, amoral conservative politician, and the two men who played them like an accordion: Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, the Nazis. Day by day we see them maneuver around one another, and day by day we realize, as Barth and Frederichs put it angrily, "(h)ow many opportunities there had been to bring down the Nazis." The Third Reich did not have to happen: the Nazi party was broke, imploding, and bleeding voters, but a cabal of conservative politicians who thought they could control, use, and then dispose of Hitler put him into power anyway. Sound familiar?

I found the format interesting but not always effective: some days, not much was going on. I also missed the relative lack of depth and analysis. But this is a unique and I think vital book for anyone curious at how the Nazis were put into power.

[Wolfgang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Geschichte im Tagebuch-Format. Dokumentiert werden die Tage zwischen November 1932 und dem 30. Januar, dem Tag als Hindenburg Hitler zum Kanzler ernennt. Es werden die Geschehnisse und politischen Machenschaften eines jeden Tages protokoliert.

Die Geschichte ist eigentlich hinreichend bekannt und dokumentiert. Allerdings überrascht mich das Buch durch seine Schilderung-Technik dann doch in zweierlei Hinsicht.

1) Wie nah die NSDAP am Abgrund war, die Wähler-Popularität zu verlieren. Die Wähler begannen sich abzuwenden, weil Hitler es strikt ablehnte, die Macht in einer Koalition zu teilen, so aber lange als Blockierer an der Seitenlinie zu verlieren schien. Er spielte mit hohem Risiko Alles-oder-Nichts und lies so die 'gemässigteren' Konservativen ohne praktische Parlamentsmehrheit und in die Sackgasse laufen. Am Ende gewinnt er aber das Vabanque-Spiel knapp als alle Alternativen blockiert zu sein schienen.

2) Der Fokus auf die Ereignisse jeden Tages im Detail und fortlaufend eröffnet die Perspektive, wie die Öffentlichkeit zu der Zeit die Politik auch wahrnehmen musste. Wenn man nun als Leser das tägliche Machtkampfchaos und die Propagandaschlachten verfolgt, verliert man schnell auch den Blick auf's grosse Ganze, so wie es den Zeitzeugen auch gegangen sein muss. Leicht nachvollziehbar wird eine Eintstellung, dass das ganze polarisierte Politiktheater nichts bringt und die richtigen Probleme nicht im Mindesten angeht. Ein kurzer Schritt von da zum Wunsch, dass endlich ein starker Mann kommen und alles regeln soll.

Die Parallelen zu heute sind unverkennbar.

[Dimitri · Rating 2 out of 5]

Een chronologische verzameling anekdotes zonder veel samenhang, zeker wat betreft exact de politieke machinaties. Abraham Plotkin's Alexanderplatz geïnspireerde odyssee doorheen de Danteske huurkazernes van Berlijn geeft nog het meest vorm aan het dagelijkse leven, waar politiek alleen in de krant voortkabbelt.

[Ženija · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eine detaillierte, auch wenn ein bisschen zu dramatisierende, Darstellung der letzten zehn Wochen der Weimarer Republik. Hier zeigt sich deutlich, wie eng der Wunsch, der Heimat zu helfen, und schlichte Machtgier verbunden ist und wie unmöglich es ist, große Ziele alleine zu erreichen: Einigkeit und Geschlossenheit sind unabdingbar, egal ob man sich für die Demokratie oder eine nationalsozialistische Diktatur einsetzt. Und manchmal reicht es auch einfach mit Tricksereien.

[Morgan Baliviera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un’eccellente cronistoria delle ultime settimane della Repubblica di Weimar, tra intrighi, ambizioni ed una trama degna di House of Cards. Come ha fatto Hitler ad arrivare al potere, nonostante il partito nazista fosse a un passo dallo sfacelo? Le lotte intestine tra von Papen e Schleicher, con il vecchio Presidente Hindenburg sullo sfondo, ci spiegano come.

[Anna Buhl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book and very thought-provoking when put in context with our current times. As I read somewhere on the internet: imagine what Goebbles could have done with Facebook.

[Charles Haywood · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the demonology of the West, for nearly a hundred years the rise to power of Adolf Hitler has played a leading part. Nearly everyone knows, or thinks he knows, though he is wrong, that “the Germans elected Hitler,” with the apparent lesson that a people can go bad and democracy must never be allowed to repeat such an error. Few, however, actually know the nuts and bolts of how Hitler came to power. This fascinating book fills that gap, by offering a day-by-day account of the national politics of the Weimar Republic from November, 1932 until the end of January, 1933. And it is certainly true that lessons are strewn everywhere in this story, though they have nothing to with reinforcing our own fake democracy.

The authors, two German journalists, Rüdiger Barth and Hauke Friederichs, write a present-tense narrative covering each day, based on daily newspapers, as well as on other in-the-moment documents such as diaries and letters, along with secondary sources. Each day’s entry is headed by excerpts from the mainstream papers of the time, usually with wildly divergent presentations and calls to action (a phenomenon strange to us, of which more later). The authors do a good job of sketching the personalities of everyone involved, and of making clear what can be known and what must be surmised from the evidence. It sounds like such a narrative would be choppy, but the result is actually quite compelling, if not analytically deep.

The Weimar Republic was the parliamentary system set up by the Germans in 1919 in the chaos after World War I, which had included not only losing the war, but several violent revolutions by Left factions. The constitution of the Republic had various interesting (and problematic) characteristics, but at its core it was a parliamentary system. The government was headed by a Chancellor (essentially what the English call the prime minister), with considerable power, but in practice he shared power with an extremely strong President, directly elected by universal suffrage. Not only did the President appoint the Chancellor at his sole discretion, which meant he could appoint a Chancellor and his cabinet not backed by a majority in Parliament (a “presidential cabinet”), he could dismiss the Chancellor at will, even without a parliamentary vote of no confidence. Still more notable, the President could effectively rule by decree, ignoring the Chancellor, using the famous Article 48 (something closely analyzed by Carl Schmitt, who plays a background role in this book). Theoretically, Parliament could overrule an emergency decree, but in practice found it impossible to do, and the President since 1925, aging war hero Paul Hindenburg, repeatedly dissolved parliament if he thought this might change.

In 1932, Germany was doing poorly. After the immediate post-war chaos, and the 1924 hyperinflation, it had managed to stabilize somewhat. The last half of the 1920s were a time of a more stable economy, but only relatively, and there was much cultural decay, such as the rise, especially in Berlin, of publicly-celebrated degradation and perversion, now retconned by our modern versions of their perverts into the “Golden Twenties,” which they certainly were for degenerates and perverts. The authors note, for example, that the British homosexual writer Christopher Isherwood loved the Berlin of the time, because “the international nightlife was incomparably risqué.” No doubt it was for him, though the non-pervert native Berliner who couldn’t feed his family did not find that relevant. The Great Depression, beginning in 1929, had hit hard. Unemployment in 1932 was more than thirty percent, and even those working were struggling to get by. The populace was getting mighty tired of bad times, and everyone was looking for a solution.

A fundamental procedural problem was that Parliament for some time had had a “negative majority”—there were enough votes to obtain a vote of no confidence against any Chancellor, as enemies cooperated for that limited purpose, but not enough votes to form a majority that could stand behind a Chancellor. The most recent elections for the Reichstag (the main, lower house) had been held on November 6, 1932. A third of the seats were obtained by the National Socialists (NSDAP). Twenty percent and sixteen percent were held by the Social Democrats (SPD) and Communists (KPD) respectively—both parties of the extreme Left, but violent enemies, because the Moscow-directed KPD had been instructed that the slightly-more-centrist SPD was just as much the enemy as the NSDAP. The only other two parties of note were the centrist Centre Party, a Catholic (largely Bavarian) party, at twelve percent, and the conservative German National People’s Party (DNVP), led by the powerful media baron Alfred Hugenberg.

Americans are used not only to an allegedly two-party system, but also to much more monolithic political activity. They are not accustomed to anything like the fractured atmosphere of late Weimar Germany, where many interests aggressively competed—not just political parties, but also powerful independent forces such as trade unions and the National Rural League (representing landowners), which were not aligned with a specific party. For decades in America, the Left has acted in unison, cooperatively crafting and rolling out a program which is then broadcast by Regime media to create the Narrative, then implemented and enforced by every powerful “independent” group in the country. In and through this process, every element of the Left coalition is rewarded and continually supports the collective line (though the recent wars in Israel have caused some cracks in this cozy setup, for the first time). The pretend opposition of the Republican Party cooperates with the Left’s program in exchange for social and material rewards. As a result, today the American system is close to a one-party state. We therefore find it hard to grasp the chaos that a system like Weimar embodied.

The KPD openly called for the destruction of the German political and social system, calling for Communist revolution. The NSDAP more mutedly threatened the Republic, but everyone knew, despite their half-hearted protestations, that they posed a very high risk of simply overthrowing the Weimar constitution if they got power. (What to do, constitutionally, given the problem of the Communists and the National Socialists and their threats to the constitution, was a besetting preoccupation of Carl Schmitt at this time.) At the end of 1932, the Chancellor was, and had been since June, Franz von Papen, a member of the Centre Party (though at odds with his own party, which withdrew support from him because he was regarded as disloyal). Papen was a monarchist and old-school conservative, and therefore the type of man with whom Hindenburg resonated.

We begin on November 17, the day Papen resigned as Chancellor, when it became clear his cabinet refused to continue to support him. Papen was a protégé of the Defense Minister, Kurt von Schleicher, who had also turned against him, in part hoping to become Chancellor himself. The past six months had been uneasy months; among other crises, Hindenburg had dissolved the government of Prussia, the largest and most important state, and effectively administered Prussia by decree, the legality of which was winding its way through the courts. The question of the hour was how a new government could be formed that had any strong degree of support. A government of the Left was out of the question—not only because the Left parties did not cooperate with each other, and even collectively did not have anything approaching a majority, but because such a thing was unthinkable to Hindenburg and pretty much everyone else in the ruling classes.

The obvious play was some combination of the National Socialists, the DNVP, and the Centre Party, who agreed on quite a bit. But the National Socialists were not playing nice with the government. They had no cabinet seats, as a result, and no direct access to federal power. Hitler had already rejected a proposal to make him Vice-Chancellor or give the NSDAP some minor cabinet posts. He regarded any attempt to bring the NSDAP into the government that did not include him as Chancellor as a non-starter, a mere attempt to coopt the National Socialists into working for a government that opposed their interests. His analysis was correct, of course—nobody in power actually wanted the NSDAP to have any real say in government. None of the men in charge liked the National Socialists, whom they regarded as vulgar upstarts, prone to gutter street fighting and openly contemptuous of the very existence of the Republic. The NSDAP, however, was behind the eight ball—they needed money (men of the SA, the Sturmabteilung, the National Socialist paramilitary force, with collection boxes, begging on behalf of the Party, were ubiquitous in the streets), and votes for the NSDAP had dropped significantly in the November election. Moreover, they were wracked by internal struggles, notably between Hitler and Gregor Strasser, who wanted more focus on socialist/distributive economics and other “third position” policies.

Papen’s resignation meant that Hindenburg had to form a new government—but he wanted one that still excluded the NSDAP, and he certainly wasn’t going to include the Communists, or the Social Democrats, so forming any government was a challenge. The only way to pass something in Parliament was for either the Communists or National Socialists to vote for it, usually not because they favored a proposal, but because it harmed their opponents. (The Communists expected if the NSDAP came to power that they would gain, not lose, power themselves. Conversely, and a fact buried nowadays, most observers expected, if the NSDAP collapsed, that many of its members would move to the Communists.) Hindenburg met with all the key political players, including Hitler, as well as non-political players, such as leading industrialists and landowners. In fact, much of this book is the description of meetings between men of power—some private, some not, some meant to be private and made public by one mechanism or another. He tried repeatedly to get some powerful politician, any powerful politician other than Hitler or someone on the Left, to try to form a coalition government. All refused, or quickly failed in their attempts.

The entire city of Berlin was on edge. (Not much is said in this book about any area outside of Berlin, except in the context of some regional elections. It’s opaque what, for example, provincial newspapers said, or provincial people thought, or even people in other urban centers. But one book can’t cover everything.) There was low-level political violence—meaning many fights and some murders, five in the first few days of January. Both the KPD and NSDAP nakedly used these killings to whip up their faithful, and both stockpiled guns and explosives. It is startling how short sentences were for political violence (of both the Right and the Left), and how often mass amnesties for any politically-related crime cut short even those sentences. But there are also repeated instances mentioned of how the government issued decrees against “political terror” and then used them ex post facto against opponents, in a way very similar to how our own Regime repurposes laws against its Trumpist opponents.

As always in such situations, rumors were everywhere. A few facts were undisputed. First, that Hitler wanted the job of Chancellor. One might even say he needed it; there was a real question if the NSDAP would survive further months in the political wilderness. Many National Socialists were very tired of years on the outside, slaving away and taking risks while never tasting the benefits of power, tangible and intangible. Quite a few thought half a cookie was better than none, and Strasser was prominent in this group. Joseph Goebbels, propaganda king, and Hermann Göring, that very strange yet powerful man, on the other hand, stuck with the all-or-none plan—Hitler inspired loyalty to a degree no other German politician did, one of his hidden weapons. Second, that Schleicher, who had never been elected to any office but had always only been a military man (he held the rank of general), also wanted the job, and that he was meddling in internal NSDAP politics to achieve this goal (not that he was an NSDAP member himself). Third, that Hindenburg despised and disliked this whole process, not only because of the poor choices offered him, but because he didn’t really like republican government at all.

The Ministry of Defense spent much time wargaming whether the military could put down an alliance between the Communists and the NSDAP to permanently overthrow the Republic through a general strike. That may seem like an odd fear, but the two parties had cooperated in smaller-scale actions of this type before. Moreover, in the European context, this kind of general strike is more-or-less a euphemism for civil war, given that the aims of a general strike are massive and permanent governmental change, and that the instigators assume that violence will accompany a general strike. How likely any of this was is anyone’s guess, but the focus on it (and Schleicher’s involvement in it) show the pressure on Hindenburg to form a stable government that could avert this kind of outcome.

Hindenburg, pressed, offered Hitler the chance to rule—but only under a coalition government, having “a stable, working majority in the Reichstag with a clear, consolidated agenda,” and with his powers as Chancellor sharply circumscribed. Hindenburg explicitly wanted to avoid a “party dictatorship” that would “exacerbate the rifts within the German people.” But Hitler could not get a majority—nobody could get a majority, so this was not really an offer in good faith. And he was not interested in being limited by coalition partners, who would have different interests and dilute his power, and therefore his appeal. He would be just another politician, and he was smart, and cunning, enough to know that was never going to work for him. He was even less interested in another idea floated by Hindenburg, a presidential cabinet headed by Schleicher but with significant NSDAP presence, and Hitler as Vice-Chancellor. At the same time all this was going on, a regional election campaign was also ongoing, in Thuringia. The NSDAP lost ground there, despite intense effort by their leaders, who had crisscrossed the province, further increasing pressure on Hitler.

On December 2, Hindenburg appointed Schleicher as Chancellor, basically because he could think of nothing else to do, and Schleicher had been angling hard for the job (including by sabotaging a reappointment of Papen)—though he insisted Hindenburg grant him the power to dissolve Parliament, and he also continued as Defense Minister. The cabinet itself did not change much. Parliament reconvened; there were brawls in the cloakroom between the KPD and the NSDAP members. Schleicher hoped that at least some of the parties, perhaps the Centre party or even the NSDAP, would come out in support of the new cabinet, firming up his position. He was disappointed. Still, he tried to govern, which meant primarily various initiatives to relieve the suffering of the people, both urban and rural, lower-class and middle-class. These ranged from direct handouts of food; to price controls on coal, meat, bread, and milk; to various efforts at job creation. All cost money the government did not have. Suicide was becoming common; one father, the day before Christmas, strangled his son and hanged himself, unable to feed his family, and this was not the only such tragedy. Yet the stock market had gone up thirty percent in the past nine months; it is not only in 2024 America that one can proclaim good news for the investment and finance class while the majority of the citizenry is ignored and immiserated.

On December 8, Hitler’s main internal competition, Strasser, resigned and retired from politics, even leaving the country for a time, enabling Hitler to fully consolidate his power over the party. He took advantage of the opportunity, requiring loyalty oaths and purging Strasserites, as well as going on a charm offensive. Hitler consolidating control wasn’t Strasser’s intention; he actually hoped the party would collapse when he “departed.” (Strasser would be killed in 1934, in the Night of the Long Knives; he was still viewed as a threat.) The NSDAP, however, along with its armed wing, the SA, was losing members and was unable to pay its bills, including reimbursement of expenses advanced by members.

Meanwhile, Schleicher, whom Hindenburg now forbade to dismiss Parliament despite his earlier pledge, was desperately searching for allies, and finding none, resorted to floating lies that the head of the DNVP, Hugenberg, would join the cabinet, along with Strasser. He also proposed an extended, unconstitutional period of rule without calling a new election. Papen simultaneously machinated with Hindenburg (he was close to both Hindenburg and Hindenburg’s powerful son Oskar), both men hoping that they could perhaps get Hitler to join a coalition of some type. Hitler was willing to talk to Papen, seeing that through him he might get Hindenburg to make him Chancellor, if he promised to throw Papen some bones. News of their meetings leaked; it was seen, accurately, as the beginning of an effort to remove Schleicher. The latter responded by meeting with Strasser and trying (unsuccessfully) to curry favor with the SPD.

On January 3, the emergency decree that forbade rallies and demonstrations ended. The NSDAP, keen to reverse its electoral slide, focused on another, smaller regional campaign, in Lippe, the smallest Weimar state, where there were 100,000 registered voters. The Communists also focused on Lippe; between the two parties, they held more than three hundred rallies. On January 15, the NSDAP did fairly well, but not spectacularly well.

On January 18, Hitler and Papen met again. (As with most of the meetings . . . [Review completes as first comment.]

[Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

On the same day I finished reading this book, an editorial coincidentally appeared in the New York Times by Thomas Edsall titled ‘I Fear That We Are Witnessing the End of American Democracy.’ The title is a quote by the Harvard psychologist Joshua Greene, who closed an email to Edsall with those ominous words -- although, Greene said, he believes Joe Biden ‘will probably win’ in November.

Whether we Americans are witnessing the end to democracy as we know it is a legitimate concern. Let’s set aside, if we can, the reality that millions of Americans have been excluded from full participation in government and society over the past 230 years -- what democracy? What once seemed impossible -- the implosion of our system of government just a generation after the American Century-- now seems possible should the presidential election fail to produce a clear and universally accepted winner. Or, depending on your perspective, if Americans re-elect a president who disregards laws and norms and is supported by voters who apparently prefer an authoritarian, racially-exclusivist form of government (the subject of Edsall’s column).

American democracy has been a charade for some time now. Eighteen-percent of the population elects 52 senators. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, gross economic inequality, a broken justice system, and an almost entirely unaccountable military and national security state (with its endless wars, private security contractors, and about a thousand bases sprawled across the globe) erode the foundations of our system. Still, we may still subscribe to the notion that our problems are not intractable and a course correction is possible -- starting with election day.

Can you really be sure when you are voting in your last free and fair election? And what would our system look like after democracy’s farewell? For answers we may look to the past. After all, democracies and republics have failed. An example many people reach for is Germany, whose first democracy endured only 15 years from 1919 to 1933.

In ‘The Last Winter of the Weimar Republic,’ the German journalists Rudiger Barth and Hauke Friederichs did not attempt to draw any timely comparisons between Germany in 1932 and the United States in 2020, between the Nazi Party led by Adolph Hitler and the Republican Party led by Donald Trump. Barth and Friederichs sought to recapture the drama of two critical months: December 1932 and January 1933. These eight weeks were the culmination of the Nazis ‘years of struggle’ to attain power. And the Nazis accumulated power through the Weimar Republic’s electoral system by becoming the largest political party in Germany, although one that never achieved a parliamentary majority. Their popularity topped out at about 40 percent and was losing steam (and financing) after the fourth and final major election of 1932.

As the authors put it, ‘our goal was to construct the book like a documentary montage, allowing the characters to speak for themselves… without knowing commentary or the wisdom of hindsight. To let the drama unfold of its own accord, to watch as it emerged from the moment.’ (p. 371)

In this short volume, each chapter covers one day on the calendar, topped with headlines from the daily, partisan newspapers. These headlines were illuminating; similar to the “choose your own reality” of cable news today, the right-wing and left-wing publications of politically-fractured Germany saw events in dramatically different lights.

Brief paragraphs consist of information gleaned from ‘transcripts and minutes, diaries, letters, newspaper articles and government documents’ to ‘reconstruct events as precisely as possible.’ (p. 369) As a result, the book reads more like a reporter’s notebook than a sweeping historical drama.

Historical analysis is largely absent, as is the broader context of Germany’s vexing social and economic problems. A student new to this subject will learn little about what was happening outside the halls of power in the approach taken by Barth and Friederichs. Instead, the chapters mostly detail secret meeting after secret meeting, introducing us to the key men who ended the Weimar Republic’s crippling political paralysis by conspiring to appoint Adolph Hitler chancellor on January 30, 1933.

Less well-known people appear intermittently, such as the American trade unionist Abraham Plotkin. He visited Depression-era Germany to research the economic catastrophe and welfare state. His observations, along with the eyewitness accounts of other minor figures, add some color to an otherwise dull telling.

Hitler is not the focus of this book. He shares the stage with Hindenburg, Papen, and Schleicher, the decision-makers who enabled the “seizure” of power by the Nazis. It may be more accurate to say Hitler was at first levered into power before seizing it totally. Whatever your interpretation, I did not sense the tension the authors must have aimed for as their book reached its climax, that world-altering moment when President Paul Hindenburg, who disliked Hitler and had adamantly refused for months to let him lead a cabinet, appointed the “Bohemian corporal” chancellor at 11:15 a.m. on January 30, 1933.

I wanted more from ‘The Last Winter of the Weimar Republic.’ It lacked fresh insights about the critical events of December-January, and it did not add much to my own thinking about the tenuous future of the American republic. These were, of course, not the authors’ aims. They succeeded at writing the book they sought to write.

Americans are not about to participate in their last free election (federal, state, county, or municipal), Congress is not about to be disbanded, and we are not on the verge of becoming a single-party dictatorship enforced by state violence against internal enemies. Donald Trump is not Hitler -- despite a sticker I saw posted to a sign in my neighborhood park saying something about a “GOP-Nazi alliance.”

Moreover, while we Americans believe (with reason) that we are living through a defining moment in our nation's history, the initial response of many Germans to Hitler's appointment to the chancellery was muted or laudatory. Despite Nazi propaganda heralding a new age, many Germans simply wanted an end to the political impasse and street violence perpetrated by the parties' paramilitaries, and they hoped Hitler would deliver. As for the men who brought Hitler into the government with the purpose of ending parliamentary democracy, they expected to control him as they administered a right-wing, authoritarian regime. Few leaders or citizens foresaw the nightmare that was to come.

Yet we read books such as this one because we seek a usable past, a past to help us make sense of our own troubling times. The comparison cannot be dismissed. The racism, xenophobia, incessant lies about matters important and trivial, cynical attacks on the free press, disregard for laws and norms, willingness to use federal officers to attack protesters, the assault on our institutions (even the Post Office!), and the assault on truth itself (abetted by Fox News) -- all find parallels, however superficial some may be, in Germany’s dark past. Things do not have to be entirely alike to make our stomachs churn.

A final word: you may want to try Richard Evans’ ‘The Coming of the Third Reich,’ a masterpiece of historical scholarship. ‘The Last Winter of the Weimar Republic’ is just okay.

[Mannie Liscum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rudiger Barth and Hauke Friederichs’ “The Last Winter of the Weimar Republic: The Rise of the Third Reich” is a solid piece of historiography. The story is told as a day by day chronology - over the period from 17 Nov 1932 to 30 January 1933 (the day Adolf Hitler is sworn in a Chancellor of Germany), as short snippets (one to a few paragraphs in length each) from contemporary sources (individual diaries, news stories, government documents). Though this literary approach is at first a bit jarring and choppy feeling, it grows on the reader. Eventually the fuller picture, rich in its textures because of the way the drama is narrated, comes into focus. As the authors point out in their ‘epilogue’ of sorts, the great nuances and machinations of the dying Weimar Republic, and the German statesmen who played the starring and support roles in this historical drama are rich indeed.

[Edmond Dantes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Racconto in presa diretta degli ultimi 2 mesi della Repubblica di Weimar prima che il "Caporale boemo" come lo chiamava Hindenburg, prendesso il potere e spazzasse via tutti gli oppositori di centro sinistra , ma anche destra, ma anche la stessa vecchia Germania che lo aveva condotto al potere...
Quella Stessa Germania , capitanata da Hindenburg e dagli Junker che si sacrificherà poi, alla fine, nel complotto del 20/07/1944, riparando, almeno in parte, alla mostrusità che avevano contribuito a creare.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

On November 17, 1932 German Chancellor Von Papen resigned. President Hindenburg had to name his successor.

Everyone in the German Government agreed that Hitler should not be Chancellor. The Nazis got 37.2% of the vote in the June 1932 elections. They were the largest party in the Reichstag. The feeling was that they had peaked. In the November elections they dropped to 33%. Hitler was viewed as unbalanced, unprepared, extremist and a declared opponent of democratic government.

The other thing everyone in the German government agreed on was that the Communist were the real threat to the German state. The German Communist Party had about 16% of the vote. It was also an opponent of liberal democracy. It's orders from Russia were to exacerbate the social disorder in Germany to bring on the revolution.

Hindenburg, the Army senior officers, and the large industrialist all believed that harsh authoritarian measures were needed to stop the Communist. The weakest forces in German political life were the liberal democrats and socialists.

This book is a day by day telling of how it was that Hitler ended up being named Chancellor on January 30,1933, ten weeks later.

Barth and Friedericks gives us a present tense snap-shot by snap-shot view of the collapse of the Weimar Republic. They follow a large cast of politicians, journalist, party activist and citizens as the story unwinds around them. It is a hard trick to pull off and they do it well. Each of the stories that snake through the book are easy to keep straight and the whole effect is that we are living through this mess, watching it evolve.

At bottom Hitler won because he alone had a clear intense unvarying goal. He believed he must become the dictator of Germany to be its savior. All of the other politicians were frantically trying to come up with coalitions and partnerships to get in or stay in power but none of them had any particular reason why they should be in charge.

Hindenburg et. al. had no faith in democratic rule. The fact that Hitler was proudly authoritarian was not a negative to them. He profited by the thought that "at least he will put down the Communists."

Hitler doesn't come off as a brilliant strategist. His success seems to be more from his unbending stubbornness. Politicians were confused by someone who just refused to compromise.

The authors give us a feel of the year going by. Berliners are doing Christmas shopping in Depression impoverished stores. Life in Berlin tenements is horrific. The social world of embassy parties continues every night. Each day begins with headlines from the newspapers. Frequently the headline in the Nazi Paper , "The Angriff", is the exact opposite of the one in the Communist paper, "Rote Fahne".

Caroline Waight deserves credit for an excellent translation from the original German. The story is told in a fast paced journalistic style and she renders it into excellent idiomatic English. It does not read as a translated book. A glossary of names and acronyms would have been helpful

This is a terrifying story of a right wing extremist not restrained by the conservative forces because they have all abandoned their basic loyalty to democracy and democratic norms. I am just saying.

[Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author's were inspired by watching the TV series, "House of Cards" and realized that the last 10 weeks of the Weimer republic had even more political intrigue. The historical simplification that Prussian Junkers gave Hitler power thinking they could control him, is inadequate to the real story. At the time, there were numerous political parties across the political spectrum, none with a majority and all fighting for power. From the left to right - KPD - German Communist Party - actually wanting the government to fail to bring on the revolution, heavily influenced by Moscow. SPD - Social Democrats - the largest group, the political wing of the trade-unions. They had helped elect Hindenburg, a monarchist and Junker, to protect the republic from Hitler in 1932. DNVP - German Nationalist party - conservative party, and NSDAP - Nazis. The central parties were small and weak - the electorate moving to the extreme ends of the political spectrum due to the poor economy. Each of these main parties also had a paramilitary wing with hundreds of thousands of trained/uniformed members. It was not just the Nazis that could bring 50,000 troops to parade through any major city in Germany. The Germany Army was officially limited to 100,000 troops and even their higher unofficial number was smaller than any of these groups. The main fear of ordinary Germans was a civil war started by these paramilitary groups. The tragedy is that the Nazis were starting to loose influence and were deeply in debt. However, the communists and socialist feared the other and central parties more than the fascists. And the Nationalists hated the Nazis, but were willing to join a collation. Hindenburg, the bastion against Nazis, had two successive governments fail and would never support the socialists or left parties. He finally relented and supported this collation. Of course, once Hitler had the chancellorship, the Nazis quickly pushed out or killed any opposition. Just as many feared.

Each book section is a single day, the section header a series of headlines from various newspapers. As each newspaper is associated with a political party, fascinating to read how each spins the events of each day.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book that covers the daily remnants of the final days of the Weimar Republic. High inflation, a terrible economy, politicians with no answer, people walking the streets because it was better to outside than inside in a dark and cold unlit room, abortions were high, and violence between opposing parties erupted throughout a young but fragile republic. My paternal grandmother was from Germany. She was born when Kaiser Wilhelm was ruling in 1913 and she came to the US in 1927. I never had the privilege of meeting her, but she told my father what Germany was like during those times. She went to bed hungry most nights and people were using currency as firewood because the value of the Deutsch Mark was useless. Hearing her experiences and reading what Weimar Germany was like it is no wonder extremists came into power. The book starts in November 1932 and ends in January 1933 when Hitler was finally chosen to be chancellor. I understood the politics of Hitler becoming chancellor, but there is a lot behind this story. A lot of discussions behind closed doors. This book kept me engaged during throughout. It adds new information on Hitler coming to power. A must read.

[Scott Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Audiobook) (3.5 stars)A blow-by-blow of a critical period in German history, where the weakened Weimar Republic fell from power, giving rise to the Nazis, and all that would transpire from there. In some respects, it seemed inevitable that the Nazis would move forward and take power, but even in 1932, as Weimar was on its last legs, the Nazis were not in as strong a position as many might suspect. Between infighting and serious financial shortfalls, the National Socialist Party was more on the ropes that people realized. Yet, the current ruling government was in worse shape, especially under the guise of Hindenburg, who was hardly a man on top of the country in power, and was not completely against the Nazis. Also, those directly under him, with the real power, were trying to play their own games to increase power, many of which involved using Hitler to help their aims, only for them to realize too late that Hitler was playing them.

The cautionary tales from Weimar have relevance in the current age. Will America suffer that fate? Hard to say at this point. The rating is the same regardless of the format. Worth the read, along with other material on Weimar.

[Slávek Rydval · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zcela náhodou jsem v knihkupectví narazil na tuto knihu, která mě zaujala už jenom svým zpracováním. A obsah nijak nezaostává, naopak. Historická fakta (neověřoval jsem je) velmi čtivým způsobem představuje posledních deset týdnů Výmarské republiky, tedy doby, kdy vůbec nebylo jasné, zda se Hitler vůbec stane kancléřem.

Popis je den po dni z pohledu několika lidí, kteří v té době ve veřejném životě něco znamenali (Hitler, Schleicher, Papen či Hindenburg a mnozí další).

Pro mě bylo překvapivé, že Hitler nejen že neměl nic jistého, ale v roce 1932 nebyla ani jistá jeho pozice v NSDAP. Ve volbách ztrácel, NSDAP bylo téměř před rozpadem, finančně na dně. A hlavně že Papen tak jednoznačný hrobař Výmarské republiky zase tak s jistotou nebyl.

Rozhodoval jsem se mezi čtyřmi a pěti hvězdičkami. Vadila mi totiž jedna věc a to nadhled jednotlivých dnů a konkrétních události (jak jsem psal, text je psán z různých pohledů). Jenže upřímně, to nebylo záměrem autorů. Takže nechávám pět. A doporučuji všemi deseti.

[Jeff Mauch · Rating 3 out of 5]

40. History Book Club Selection. This is a book that offers a day by day account of German politics in December of 1932 and January of 1933. This is when the Weimar Republic was on its last legs and eventually gave rise to the Nazis and brought Hitler to power. This book is not for the casual historian. It's a deep dive into the minutiae of letters and conversations between those in government and those influencing the government during this period. It's full of backdoor deals and secret negotiations that even I, as a history buff, found to be too detailed and hard to follow at times. My biggest takeaway here is just how uncertain it was that Hitler and the Nazis would rise to power as it was very much up in the air until the very end. Hitler was a force to be reckoned with for sure, but his party was struggling financially and was at this time on a decline and grasping to stay relevant. Overall, this is dense, at times hard to follow due to the vast number of players, and not for the casual reader.
3/5

[Jon Walgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Day by day history from December 1932 until January 30, 1933 (day AH appointed Chancellor [during the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), the Chancellor was chosen by the Reichspräsident and stood under his authority. This continued (formally) during the first two years of the Nazi regime until the death of President Paul von Hindenburg in 1934. Between 1934 and 1945, Adolf Hitler, the dictatorial head of state and government of Nazi Germany, was officially called "Führer und Reichskanzler" (literally "Leader and Chancellor of the Reich"].)

Paul von Hindenburg made a poor choice of a string of chancellors who failed to unite the large number of political parties, unionists, businesses, publishers ... existing in Germany. Of course PvH was dealt a lousy hand by France and England with the Treaty of Versailles of June 1919. With so many working at cross purposes and underachieving, PvH appoints ...THE DEVIl.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can a book be composed of many multicolored vignettes, each the length of a page - at most? Can they be *anything* - literally, from an ad in a paper to the editorial, and even more compressed - to a headline taken in turn from each political movement fliers? Sure, why not! This book can be compared to a crazy quilt having such multitude of colors that eventually they all blend into black. We know that Hitler did come to power, and we know how that ended.

The style of this book reminds me of Valentin Katayev's "mauvism", i.e., the style that conscientiously challenges the dogma, "the art of writing badly". It's casual, it's colloquial, folksy, and usually written by "the little man"struggling to understand what's going on around him, and trying to make sense of it all.

It's hard enough for us to make sense out of pre-Hitler power struggle, the betrayals, the trade-offs, the fake alliances and dead ends. All of them are more contemporary than we want to admit.