It has been said that the Weimar Republic of post-World War I Germany died twice. It was first murdered, and then committed suicide.
This incisive comment refers to the moral, political, and economic decay of German society during the Great Depression – as well as to the politicians of various right-wing parties in Germany who subsequently agreed that Hitler was the solution to their woes.
Even though Hitler had repeatedly declared that he wanted to use democracy to destroy democracy, rule by executive order, and establish a dictatorship, the political elite thought that they could outfox the Nazi leader and “box him in.”
As history records, the result of allowing Hitler to place a foot in the door was catastrophic – for the Jewish people and for humanity in general.
How Hitler took over Germany
Timothy W. Ryback’s excellent book Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power relates this decisive, fatal episode in 20th century history – how even though the Nazis were in decline by the end of 1932, just a few weeks later Hitler was appointed chancellor by president Paul von Hindenburg.
The author takes the reader through these last months of democracy, minute by minute, day by day, blow by blow. We are informed of the rivalries, machinations, maneuvers, and stupidities that allowed the Germans to propose Hitler as chancellor. It was almost a throwaway decision.
Hitler had already written of his disdain for democracy and the rule of law in Mein Kampf in the mid-1920s, in which he described parliament as “an assembly of idiots.”
Before the US Wall Street crash of 1929, Hitler was seen as a political non-entity, “a shy, awkward” extremist whose modulated and emotional rhetoric entrapped his listeners. However, his strategy of repeating phrases such as “Jewish influence” and “heads will roll” began to enter public consciousness at a time when the unemployed could be numbered in their destitute millions. Out of the people’s despair and fear regarding the powerful Communist Party, the Nazis were able to double their representation in the Reichstag.
The Nazis emerged as the largest party in the July 1932 election with 37% of the vote – a breakthrough but not a majority in the Reichstag. Almost 14 million Germans had voted for Hitler. In areas such as East Prussia and Schleswig-Holstein, as much as half the electorate voted for the Nazis. In cosmopolitan Berlin, less than a quarter did so.
ANOTHER REASON Hitler garnered such a large vote was due to the widespread fear of the violence of private armies, the paramilitaries of the political parties. Hitler had 400,000 stormtroopers at his disposal. The Communist Party, funded and armed by Moscow, could call up the Red Front Fighters’ League, while the Social Democrats had the Iron Front. Joseph Stalin had decreed that there should be no cooperation against the Nazis. The Communists and the Social Democrats together actually had more votes than the Nazis in the July 1932 election and could have prevented Hitler’s political advance.
Hitler’s dramatic rise had been aided by the support of figures such as steel magnate Fritz Thyssen, and piano manufacturer Edwin Bechstein. Gradually, big business was drawn in.
The author notes that the first office of the Nazi Party was a single room in the Sterneckerbräu beer hall at a rent of 50 Reichsmarks a month. A decade later in January 1931, Hitler was able to buy the Barlow Palace, a neoclassical structure, for 1.5 million Reichsmarks.
Foreigners flocked to Hitler’s standard. In September 1930, press baron Lord Rothermere, one of the wealthiest men in Britain, traveled to Munich to meet Hitler – and was deeply impressed. Hitler was “a strongman” who would get things done. Rothermere commented that it was “no good trusting the old politicians.” He also did not care too much for British Jews and Zionism.
On his return to London, Rothermere wrote in his own newspaper, the Daily Mail:
“Prominent British Jews have brought great unpopularity upon their community because of clamorous persistence in pressing for maintenance, at the expense of the hard-driven taxpayers, of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, which no Jews above the charity line want at all” (October 5, 1930).
Hitler did not like a free German press and termed their stories a “Lügenhetze” – a “witchhunt of lies.” Ryback describes Hitler’s response to any criticism in the press as “a deluge of denials, obfuscations, and his own countertide of lies.”
Hitler was a sore loser. In April 1932, he stood for the presidency against president Hindenburg, who won comfortably by millions of votes.
Hitler claimed that the election had been stolen and that “lies and slander” had been spread about him. Even after a German court had ruled that Hindenburg was indeed the winner of the presidential election, Hitler vowed to continue as he had begun: “I shall attack, attack, and attack again.” Controversial filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl observed that “Hitler spoke as if he had won the election.”
Hindenburg stood firmly against Hitler’s demands and ultimatums. In August 1932, the Prussian field marshal Hindenburg gave the Austrian corporal Hitler a dressing down in his office – and even permitted the publication of the minutes of the meeting.
Even so, several observers began to suspect that Hindenburg was drifting into dementia. Jewish journalist Bella Fromm saw him as “disoriented, inattentive and almost childlike,” amid a continual recounting of his war exploits.
HITLER ADAMANTLY refused to play the role of a secondary figure in any coalition of conservatives and demanded the top job. His stubbornness underpinned an ongoing political stalemate such that a new election was called for November 1932 to break the logjam.
The result of this second election was that the Nazis lost two million votes. They were in freefall, with huge financial problems and serious schisms within the party. Gregor Strasser, Hitler’s rival in the Nazi Party, favored participating in a broad coalition and relinquishing the chancellorship. In Berlin, 10,000 stormtroopers mutinied because they had not been paid. Hitler was regarded as a man with a great future behind him.
Media mogul Alfred Hugenberg funded the German National People’s Party and opposed Hitler at every turn. He refused to allow his small number of parliamentarians to ally themselves with the Nazis. Hugenberg finally caved in to Hitler’s demands with promises of being appointed an economics czar, the staging of new elections, and the prospect of building a broad alliance of conservative parties.
Hindenburg was tired of the continuing political melee – and decided to see what Hitler could offer. Right up to the swearing-in ceremony in Hindenburg’s office, Hugenberg was arguing with Hitler outside.
The author writes: “Hugenberg’s cheeks were red with rage, and Hitler was shouting.” Hugenberg remarked to a friend the very next day that he had made “the biggest mistake of my life.”
Once in power, Hitler used the Enabling Act to embark on a dictatorial Third Reich.
A year later, the Nazis murdered Hitler’s many internal opponents including Gregor Strasser, the early leader of the Nazi Party. In a purge known as the Night of the Long Knives, he was arrested by the Gestapo and executed.
This is a painful book to read. The question mark of what could have been hangs over every page.
The implicit warning in Ryback’s absorbing account is that we must learn from the past to be able to forge the future.
The reviewer is an emeritus professor at SOAS, University of London.
- TAKEOVER: HITLER’S FINAL RISE TO POWER
- By Timothy W. Ryback
- Knopf
- 400 pages; $31
