The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic Paperback – June 18, 2019

The Death of Democracy explains the conditions and events that brought Hitler to power. It is a very readable history book. Each section begins with a short narrative that captures from the first person perspective a pivotal scene to bring history to life, then goes into a more traditional historical view of the events leading up to that moment.It begins with the fall of 1919 - the revolution that brings down the Kaiser, the defeat of the German army, and the rise of a new democracy, the Weimar Republic. It explains all the economic and political forces of the Weimar Republic and the many factions and internal tensions that the new Germany had to contend with. It describes in depth the various Chancellors who tried to build coalitions and balance the competing factions of communists and nationalists that were fighting for control of the German parliament, and then ultimately how the Nazis were at first brought in by other actors, but then took over, and consolidated power after the Reichstag fire and ending with the Night of the Long knives.What it does not provide is an in-depth biography of Hitler. Instead this is focused on Germany.I picked this up after reading In the Garden of Beasts, which is more of a first person account of the rise of Hitler as viewed by the American Ambassador who was living there. I recommend both and they are great companion pieces. The End of Democracy is a more complete history that explains all the events and conditions. In the Garden of Beasts gives a great feeling of what it felt like at the time.If you want to understand what happened in Germany that allowed a democracy to turn into a fascist regime, then this book is great. It was exactly the historical context I was looking for. Easy to read but complete.

I enjoyed this book because it primarily focused on Germany's political landscape in the 20s and how all the key players maneuvered within the system. It detailed some aspects of the Weimar Constitution and how it either left the door open to totalitarianism or how specific clauses were leveraged by the Nazis in order to launch themselves into power. It is a good introductory history to the period and is mostly chronological. I also liked how the author included snippets of primary documents before each chapter.As far as similarities go, I think no comparison is perfect and there are some key differences between the rise of the Nazis and the modern alt-right, however I don't believe Hett belabors the point too much. The similarity of the rhetoric and aspects of the ideology, outrage at "the system," anti-globalism, preference for conspiracy theories and alternative explanations, vehement anti-communism, reacting to a migrant crisis, etc., is I think the strongest comparison to be made. Hett wrote this book for a reason and he did a great job of just letting the facts speak for themselves. Why else do we study history if not to contextualize our own times? After Jan 6th, 2021, I think Hett has only been vindicated, considering he published this book in 2018. I read this for an episode of my podcast, Hard Fried History.

The book is excellently written and even though a work of history sometimes has the quality of an intricate novel. The cast of characters and the summary of political parties at the beginning of the book are very helpful. I would like to publish a more extensive review at a later time but this will have to do for now.To start with a minor point, nearly every biography or in this case biographical sketch of Adolf Hitler argues that Hitler might not have risen to power had his father not been legitimized from Schicklgruber to Hitler. It’s stated in one form or another that the idea of masses of Germans shouting Heil Schicklgruber is too comically absurd to contemplate. All these historians resemble old borscht belt comedians who felt compelled to tell the same stale joke even though their audiences must have long ago tired of it. In addition, Hitler’s rise to power was in any case an absurdity, albeit a tragic one, that could conceivably have occurred even with the comic handicap of Schicklgruber.A more serious issue is Dr. Hett’s tie in of present day concerns about globalization with international trade problems in Weimar Germany. Now globalization encompasses a wide range of aspects but in the United States political arena the aspect of globalization that has overwhelmingly garnered the most attention is the loss of American jobs to workers in low wage countries. On page 106 Dr. Hett displays this astonishing quote from Hitler’s 1928 sequel to Mein Kampf (not published until after WWII). “The German people have no interest … a German financial group or a German shipyard establishing a so-called subsidiary shipyard in Shanghai to build ships for China with Chinese workers and Chinese steel”.Hitler was remarkably prescient about the course future globalization. However, in the 1930’s there was no audible sucking sound (to uses Ross Perot’s terminology) of German jobs being dispatched to foreign lands. Now its true that part of the Nazi party program involved autarky, that is German economic self sufficiency. The role of foreign trade was to be replaced by German domination of conquered inferior peoples. This scheme strikes me as pretty hair brained, even for Nazis, and I doubt this portion of their program generated much in the way of sales to the German electorate.Dr. Hett identifies two major globalization issues in the Weimar republic. The first was a regime of low tariffs on agricultural imports. This had the effect of lowering food prices which helped urban dwellers but hurt German farmers. There should be little doubt that this contributed to the considerable support the Nazis acquired in the rural areas of Germany. The second globalization issue involved reparations and the gold standard. The peace settlement ending WWI imposed on Germany the payment of substantial reparations. Not only were these reparations an affront to German pride but they also blew huge holes in the German government’s budget. In addition, Germany was obligated to maintain the gold standard. The combination of the gold standard and reparations made it very difficult for the German government to take measures to combat the depression which began in the late 20’s. However, in my view, a comparison of the effect of globalization on Weimar Germany and its effect on our present world adds little if anything to the discussion.The bulk of the book is of course a discussion of how Hitler and the Nazis came to power. The author’s view can be summarized as follows. The Nazis by capturing the niches of Protestant rural and middle class voters were able to secure 30 to 40 percent of the vote in elections for the Reichstag. Due to a structural stratification of the German electorate their share of of the vote became a ceiling until they actually attained power. The Nazis became the largest party in the Reichstag but they remained short of a majority.A governing majority in the Reichstag could only be achieved by coalition. The German right exclusive of the Nazis wished to exclude the socialist parties, that is the Social Democrats and the Communists and the Nazis. For awhile they did this by more or less dispensing with representative democracy altogether and ruling by Presidential decree. When things reached a pass where this no longer seemed feasible German right wing politicians decided to deal with the Nazis and ultimately made Hitler chancellor.Now this is not the first book to blame the German right wing politicians for the Nazi acquisition of power. However, it occurred to me that even if Hitler had not assumed power through a back room cabal he might have subsequently entered through the front door. Hitler was appointed Chancellor on January 29, 1933. Suppose that never happened. President Paul von Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934. It seems to me that Hitler would have won the presidential election following Hindenburg’s death. The powers of the German president were enormous with the inevitable result that Hitler and the Nazis would in this scenario also have acquired totalitarian power.A major failure of the book is its failure to adequately explain the speed of light like transition from Hitler as chancellor to Hitler as totalitarian dictator. Part of the explanation (which the author does express) is that the Nazis had detailed plans on how to expand power once they acquired it. Three events occurred in early 1933 which cemented Hitler’s hold on power. The first was the February 4th presidential decree for tor the Protection of the German people which curtailed the activities of the socialist parties and restricted freedom of speech and assembly. This was followed by the Reichstag Fire Decree which eliminated almost all civil liberties. Finally, in March of 1993 the Reichstag passed an Enabling Law which empowered Hitler for a period of four years to enact laws without the input of either the legislature or the president.Now the Enabling Decree was passed with the Nazis literally holding guns to the heads of legislators of the other parties. The Reichstag Fire was undoubtedly a response to the crisis posed by the Reichstag fire (a crisis probably created at least in part by the Nazis themselves). What was the presidential decree for the Protection of the German People (which started the boulder rolling) all about, that is where did it come from?More importantly why was the German republic in January 1933 a rotten tree ready to be blown away at the first burst of wind. Richard Evans, in ‘The Coming of the Third Reich’, in my opinion, does a better job of illuminating us as to the source of the rot. The main sources were:1) The prevalence of paramilitary violence throughout the history of the Weimar Republic. (Dr Hett also discuss this problem)2)The fact that the German Republic never attained legitimacy in the eyes of substantial portions of the German population.3)Related to #2 was the presence large number of conservative and ex-military elements in the police and judiciary. Justice and law enforcement in the Weimar Republic was biased in favor of the right and against member of the socialist parties. The police and judiciary were all too ready to betray the republic rather than defend it.These and other criticisms aside this well written book is well worth your time and money.