Fateful hours The collapse of the Weimar Republic

Ullrich (Germany 1923, 2023) argues that the fall of the Weimar Republic, which ushered in the Third Reich, was not inevitable. At several points during the Republic's existence, Ullrich asserts, the country's leadership could have made certain choices that may have halted Hitler's rise to power. Ullrich spotlights the main political and economic events that took place during the Republic era, including uprisings, right-wing terror, effects of inflation, high unemployment, labor disputes, and effects of reparations. He includes clear explanations of these events, analyzes missteps taken by the government during these times, and assesses how the legitimacy and credibility of the Republic was impacted as a result. Additionally, Ullrich explains potential alternative paths that may have preserved the Republic and stopped the Nazis. However, in eerie parallels to the present day, elites favored authoritarian rule and centrist political parties moved rightward to address public discontent, as political leadership wrongly felt that Hitler would moderate his views or become controllable. A prescient reminder of the fragility of democracy.

Ideological extremism and shortsighted political intrigue eroded German democracy and paved the way for Hitler's ascension, according to this intricate study. Historian Ullrich (Germany 1923) argues that the Weimar Republic, which struggled through communist insurrections, right-wing terror campaigns, hyperinflation, and the Great Depression, was done in less by these upheavals than by dysfunctional and toxic political factors. These included the Weimar constitution itself, which granted the president undemocratic powers like dissolving the legislature and ruling by emergency decree; the government's leniency toward far-right extremists; and the refusal of Germany's Communist Party to cooperate with the moderate left. Ullrich shrewdly analyzes a succession of incidents that nudged the Republic toward the abyss: the Communists' refusal to support the center-left candidate, for example, guaranteed the election of reactionary Paul von Hindenburg as president in 1925; and the refusal of both right and left to compromise on unemployment insurance reform brought down a coalition government and inaugurated a string of Hindenburg-appointed minority cabinets that ruled by decree (as Hitler would). Throughout, Ullrich emphasizes the contingency of events, the importance of individual decisions, and the failings of statesmen who put short-term expedience or doctrinal purity ahead of the greater good. The result is a resonant and sobering cautionary tale of how a democracy can die. (Nov.)

Ullrich, the author of a two-volume biography of Hitler, examines Germany's first, short-lived democracy. At the conclusion of World War I, in 1918, the German polity was mostly ready to be rid of kaiserism and was leaning well to the left, thanks in large measure to the return of disaffected, radicalized armies from two fronts. One key incident was a revolt among sailors who refused to sail into battle against the British fleet, launching a vast mutiny during which "workers and soldiers everywhere formed revolutionary councils." The radical movement eventually morphed into a moderate, center-left government that immediately faced several challenges, including periodic armed revolts by right-wing paramilitaries that would spawn a far-right opposition constantly engaged in plotting coups. Enter Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists, who, though decidedly a minority party, grew to become the vanguard of the right thanks in some measure to constant blundering on the part of the Weimar government--one mistake being not suppressing the Nazis in the first place. Yet, as Ullrich notes, "Hitler's ascent to power was the product of a sinister game of behind--the--scenes intrigue in which a handful of players pulled the strings," including industrialists and financiers who were all too glad to fund any effort that branded itself as anti-communist. The author argues throughout that nothing associated with Hitler's rise was inevitable: Instead of making him chancellor, for one, President Paul von Hindenburg could have dissolved the Reichstag and postponed elections, which "would have meant a barely disguised military dictatorship," but also would have allowed an improving, inflation-ridden economy to stabilize. The parallels to our own time, as Ullrich lays them out in this fluent narrative, are alarming, with new authoritarian parties and governments following the fascist playbook in every detail, from culture wars and book banning to anti-immigration decrees and the steady, willful "erosion of the constitution and democratic practices." An uncomfortably timely reminder that democracies are fragile things that can turn into dictatorships overnight. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.