OPINION:
Another book about Hitler? Before you wonder whether anything fresh can be written about a man whose life and times have been the subject of more than 100,000 books and articles, let’s note the words of a recent biographer: “Every generation must come to terms with Hitler.”
To reinforce his point, the German historian Volker Ullrich, in “Hitler: Ascent” (2016), cited the influential scholar Eberhard Jackel: “Hitler will always be with us, with those who survived, those who came afterward and even those yet to be born. He is present — not as a living figure, but as an eternal cautionary monument to what human beings are capable of.”
As historian Timothy W. Ryback demonstrates in his fourth contribution to Third Reich scholarship, “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power,” the human potential for malevolence exists not only in the perpetrators but also in their collaborators and enablers. The author is the director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague.
That such an unexceptional person as Adolf Hitler legally took power over a scientifically and culturally advanced society — not a decade after serving time for attempting to topple the government — defies easy explanation. In Mr. Ryback’s telling, Hitler and his Nazi movement would not have achieved power without help from the respectable establishment.
Mr. Ryback is more concerned with how Hitler became chancellor than why he sought power. This is not a sweeping history of the ideological origins of Nazism. Rather, in the style of literary journalism, he recounts the day-to-day political machinations that unfolded over the final seven months of the Weimar Republic beginning in July 1932. In that month’s parliamentary elections, the Nazis reached their high-water mark, winning 37% of the vote. This made the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, once relegated to the far-right lunatic fringe, the country’s most powerful political party with 230 seats in the Reichstag (out of 608) on the strength of 13 million votes.
Hitler was now Germany’s most influential politician. Yet he did not command a parliamentary majority, had held no elected office, and refused to enter any coalition government that denied him dictatorial control. He would have to lever his way into office. Because he devotes relatively little space to the larger impersonal forces that shape history, Mr. Ryback restores the urgency and contingency to the electioneering and backroom scheming that ended German democracy. The story is sewn together with an array of primary sources: newspaper articles, diaries, audio recordings of speeches, interviews of Hitler by American journalists, and the published minutes of Cabinet meetings.
When a stable government was desperately needed, Reich President Paul von Hindenburg dismissed three chancellors in seven months. All three had ruled by emergency decree. So, democracy was already on life support. Parliament remained deadlocked without a majority coalition. As the crisis of governance persisted, Hitler’s Brownshirts clashed with left-wing paramilitaries in the streets. Millions of Germans were out of work.
During the political and economic paralysis, Hitler held a strong hand. Yet the old field marshal repeatedly rebuffed him.
“By August 1932, Hindenburg represented the final bastion of the defense of democracy in his country,” Mr. Ryback says. This may be giving Hindenburg too much credit. According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the 84-year-old Reich president “rejected democratic principles and used dictatorial, if legal, powers in an attempt to govern,” and “lacked the strength to powerfully oppose Hitler’s rise to power.” It was under Hindenburg that a deal was struck in May to lift a ban on the Brownshirts in exchange for Hitler’s promise to support a new (anti-democratic) Cabinet under a new chancellor — a promise Hitler promptly abandoned shortly after the momentous July elections.
Still, Hindenburg personally loathed the Bohemian corporal. “Hindenburg told Hitler in no uncertain terms that he could never entrust a government to a political party whose members were so ‘intolerant, undisciplined, and, in addition, so violent in their behavior’… Hitler held his ground. He insisted single-party rule was the only possible solution for the country’s myriad problems,” Mr. Ryback writes.
Hitler’s all-or-nothing gamble soon tested his inner circle. Another round of elections in November confirmed that the Nazis’ fortunes were rapidly declining. Party coffers were empty. And the “pragmatists” around Gregor Strasser, Hitler’s No. 2, had lost patience with the leader’s obstinacy. It appeared Hitler had blown his chance to gain power.
By the end of January 1933, wary of the Communists’ growing presence in the parliament, Hindenburg relented. Conservative elites promised to control the beer hall rabble-rouser who offered empty assurances to govern responsibly when his goal was the destruction of democracy and elimination of all rivals.
“It has been said that the Weimar Republic died twice. It was murdered, and it committed suicide,” Mr. Ryback concludes. As a consequence, Hitler will always be with us.
• Martin Di Caro is the host of the “History as It Happens” podcast at The Washington Times.
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Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power
By Timothy W. Ryback
Knopf, 386 pages, March 26, 2024, $25.74
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