This book is a triumph of archival research and an invaluable exploration of an often misunderstood turning point in modern history. Ryback takes a day by day, nearly minute by minute, approach to tracking the series of seemingly innocuous choices and social slights starting only in late 1932 that lead directly to the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933. Because of this approach there are a lot of names and a lot of details, so aside from the heaviness of the subject, this one is not a book that can be read passively, but it also isn’t inaccessible for casual history readers. If I have one major takeaway after finishing, it’s that none of what comes after was unstoppable, but it also wasn’t as neat of a “takeover” as our popular culture likes to believe, which in some ways makes it much more horrifying to see play out. Overall, this is a fantastic and vitally important book and one that I would recommend to anyone wanting a better understanding of not just a specific moment in global history, but also the devastating consequences of seemingly unrelated choices.

3 1/2 stars

This feels like an important read, and the parallels with modern US politics --particularly Tr_mp & Republican playbooks-- is indeed uncomfortable. The account is thorough, but could have maybe been cleaned-up and organized a bit more; I often got lost in details and the repetitiveness of situations, finding it difficult to hold interest. Worthwhile read, however, something like Erik Larson's "In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin" made for a more entertaining read without compromising the facts of Hitler's rise to power.

The author presents an engaging and very detailed account of the period from August 1932 to January 30,1933 during which Hitler and the Nazi party navigate the power struggle between multiple political parties and their leaders culminating in winning the chancellorship. Despite failing to win a popular majority across multiple elections in 1932, Hitler manages to be named chancellor. Indeed, the pro-Nazi vote count fell with each successive election. But with so many vying parties and their intransigent leaders, Hindenburg appeared to accept that he had no other choice but to bestow power upon Hitler or risk a widespread revolt from the populace.
The author utilizes a vast array of original source material including diaries, memoirs, meeting protocols, newspaper articles, and photographs. The story told is a relevant reminder that democracy is precious and takes great effort to preserve it by selfless people because it is vulnerable to destruction using its own precepts against itself.

This book covers 1932 and the first part of 1933 as Hitler rose to power in Germany. It has many parallels to The United States today so is worth reading as a cautionary tale of how democracy can be lost so quickly. The Nazis never had a majority of the country and even when Hitler suppressed voting for left party candidates, were still not able to gain a majority of votes. They did manage to gain the largest minority and this became Hitler’s path to dictatorship.

Hitler essentially said all along that he wanted to destroy democracy to save the country. He destroyed democracy alright and then proceeded to destroy a whole generation of Germans in his wars that followed, not to mention millions of Jews…and French…and Russians…and…you get the point. Ideas have consequences and sometimes those consequences can be very severe.

Some pertinent quotes:

“The National Socialist movement will achieve power in Germany by methods permitted by the present Constitution—in a purely legal way,” he told The New York Times. “It will then give the German people the form of organization and government that suits our purposes.”

“In towns and villages he stoked nationalist anger, claiming the government was not protecting Germany’s borders. They let in foreigners from the east who brought chaos and crime and havoc into the country, he said, to undermine the political system and society, to despoil and violate the purity of the German race.”

“Confronted by incontrovertible evidence—photographs of Hitler and Papen on the steps of the Schröder villa—Hitler did what he always did in the face of uncomfortable fact: he denied it publicly and vociferously.”