Remission

 

A Short History of the Weimar Republic by Colin Storer

London : Bloomsbury Academic, 2019, c2013.

vii, 239 p. : ill., map ; 23 cm.   

I really love history and when I was putting this new book on the shelf the other day, I realized that I really don't know much about the Weimar Republic, that dynamic and short-lived German republic sandwiched between the ruin of one world war brought about by its preceding imperial government and the ruin of the Nazi, fascist dictatorship that marked the death of the Weimar Republic.

It was a striking thirteen years that Weimar survived, and the author is as interested in pointing out its successes and achievements as he is in documenting its eventual failure and collapse.  This was where I learned quite a lot of new information. 

I had always assumed - as many have done - that it was the crushing reparations forced on Germany after WWI that doomed the Weimar Republic to economic chaos and eventual disaster.  It's not that this was not a crucial factor in its demise, but I hadn't realized the successes that the Weimar government (under Chancellor Stresemann) had in negotiating down the burdens of its reparations. However, the fragility fo Weimar's economy and its dependence on the chaotic international economic system made it especially susceptible to the onset of the great depression in 1929.  

Storer also wants to point out that politically, Weimar managed to survive as a democratic state longer than other Central European states. He also notes the many artistic, scientific and cultural achievements of Weimar.  

There is a lot to mull over (and grieve) when reading about Weimar. Like many books of history leading up to the rise of the Nazis, one knows how it ends, but the pain is seeing that it didn't have to go the way it did and could have turned out much differently and much better, of course.

I'll definitely keep this book in mind if a student has an interest in the period.  It's an accessible and short introduction to this critical time in twentieth century Europe.

A Terrible January

A torchlight parade of SA formations passes in review before President Paul von Hindenberg, who sits in the window of the chancellery, on the night when Hitler was made Chancellor of Germany - USHMM

Hitler's Thirty Days to Power: January 1933 by Henry Ashby Turner, Jr.
Reading, Mass. : Addison-Wesley, 1996.
xii, 255 p., [32] p. of plates : ill. ; 23 cm.

This was a very readable and informative book.  It is also a very disturbing and painful book to read, since I had not realized that the fortunes of the Nazis were very much in decline at the start of New Year, 1933. It really is a remarkable look at how Hitler insisted on an all or nothing offer of power, in spite of many pressures from within and without of the Nazi party for him to accept a coalition role in governing Germany.

There is much to ruminate over in this short, powerful look at the fateful month of January 1933: the willingness of the bourgeoisie to accept the violent and racist rule of the Nazis, the role of the rule of law in allowing the rise of dictatorial powers, the mistakes of elites in assuming they can control the representatives of vulgar right-wing populism.  There is also just the awful realization of what handing the reins of power to Hitler will mean for the Germans, the Jews, and the world.

I would definitely recommend this book to any student interested in the rise of the Nazis.