The Death of Democracy

Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic

By: Benjamin Carter Hett

Narrated by: Steven Crossley

Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

The Death of Democracy is a riveting audiobook account of how the Nazi Party came to power, and how the failures of the Weimar Republic and the shortsightedness of German politicians allowed it to happen.

Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely in Germany in the 1930s? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power? In this dramatic audiobook, Benjamin Carter Hett answers these questions, and the story he tells has disturbing resonances for our own time.

To say that Hitler was elected is too simple. From the late 1920s, the Weimar Republic’s very political success sparked insurgencies against it, of which the most dangerous was the populist anti-globalization movement led by Hitler. But as Hett shows, Hitler would never have come to power if Germany’s leading politicians had not tried to coopt him, a strategy that backed them into a corner from which the only way out was to bring the Nazis in. Hett lays bare the misguided confidence of conservative politicians who believed that Hitler and his followers would willingly support them, not recognizing that their efforts to use the Nazis actually played into Hitler’s hands. They had willingly given him the tools to turn Germany into a vicious dictatorship.

Benjamin Carter Hett is one of America’s leading scholars of 20th-century Germany and a gifted storyteller whose portraits of these feckless politicians show how fragile democracy can be when those in power do not respect it. He offers a powerful lesson for today, when democracy once again finds itself embattled and the siren song of strongmen sounds ever louder.

©2018 Benjamin Carter Hett (P)2018 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"[Narrator Steven Crossley's] British accent gives his narration an academic-sounding quality fitting for the text. He is clear and precise in pronunciation and enunciation and is suitably expressive throughout." (AudioFile Magazine)
 

I can't trust the author's account of these events

I was searching for a historical description of how Weimar came about and how it fell, resulting in the rise of National Socialism. A few minutes into the book, the author claims that Hitler wanted to "Make Germany Great Again", which perked up my ears that this was probably a partisan book. I am of the opinion that I can learn from partisans without buying their propaganda so I have continued to listen. Unfortunately it wasn't the case that this is being directly compared to the current political atmosphere, it is more subtle than that. More about how I figured that out below.

The book itself delves in great detail into trivial conversations and personalities involved to the point where it is easy to lose the plot: How did Democracy die? I searched the internet for this book to see if others could help me understand the answer and found an interview done by the author right after the book was published. The abject partisanship and outright lies that the author puts forth in that interview now make me question his credibility to the point where I can't accept any of his conclusions in the book because they appear to be shaped by the author's view of what is happening today instead of the view of what happened then.

For example, in this interview the author claims that there is no agreed-upon definition of fascist, so he wouldn't necessarily call Trump a fascist, (thereby implicitly calling him a fascist) but calls Trump a "wannabe authoritarian". A historian. Who claims that we can't define Fascism. That was a big red flag for me.

He also repeats this trope: "His instincts are highly authoritarian as manifested in the bromances he has with mass-murdering dictators around the world. He unfailingly loves foreign leaders who are brutal dictators, and doesn’t like democratic leaders. How could you like Putin and Duterte and not like Justin Trudeau. That is somebody who has an inverted and un-American set of values."

Fortunately in our current world you can look up what Trump has said about Putin and he never says that he loves him. In a quote after a press conference with Putin, reported in the worst possible light by CNN, he says this about Putin: "Well actually, I called him a competitor. And a good competitor he is. And I think the word 'competitor' is a compliment." This is the level of partisanship we are talking about here. This is not simply partisanship, it is taking every available statement and casting it in the worst possible light. We are used to hearing that by now from our politicians and journalists but it has sunk to the level of historians. It has been said that history is written by the winners but in our current world it is being paradoxically written by the losers. This is one of the authors of that alternative history. Take a look at his Twitter feed and you will see the state of the man.

CONCLUSION: I CAN'T TRUST THE AUTHOR
Given this demonstration of partisanship in modern politics I can't trust that the author is giving me a balanced picture of what happened in this historical event. I noticed other signs of this happening in the text. For example, he barely glosses over the invasion of Germany and occupation of the Ruhr by France and Belgium in 1923, mentioning it only in the context that it was finished when Hitler was coming to power so didn't help him. As a layman something tells me that it may have had much more to do with the feeling that Germany was being unfairly oppressed by outside forces and may have contributed the the rise.

He also claims that the Social Democrats were the defenders of Democracy but never mentions that they were big supporters of the paramilitary Freikorps, which used political violence to crush the Communist uprising in 1918.

If you are part of the #resistance and are looking for direct parallels between what is happening today and what happened then, I am afraid you may be disappointed. From my reading the closest you will get is the idea that Lindsay Graham and Mitch McConnell are somehow to be compared to Hindenburg and Schleicher. It's a weak argument but the best you will find here. You'll have a hard time finding Trump=Hitler ammo here. Within a few weeks of coming to power Hitler essentially dissolved the Reichstag (equivalent of our Congress) and gave all legislative power to himself in the Executive branch through the Enabling Act of 1933. Three years later and Trump has done nothing even approaching this.

Democracy in Crisis

I found this book to be a challenge and lesson. In the Trump era we need to resist the irrationality and blind hatred of Trump supporters. There can be no compromises to the anti-intellectualism and the irrationality
of the right. Trump stands for nothing but vague ideas and incoherence and the slogans he spouts. It is no use to argue with his supporters because they have no will to see another viewpoint. To them, Trump is their savior, a gift from God, and sometimes they say he is the Messiah. Who can argue with a god. There are so many parallels to interwar years Germany. I recommend this book to everyone who is interested in protecting and defending the Constitution.

Don't miss this beautifully written book

I get jaded at times when I try a multi-starred book and find it less appealing than I would like. This book is a gem on the three ratings. If your interest in Hitler and his rise, his eventual stranglehold on the Republic, its political parties, the church, and the media. Ultimately Hitler had the German people in his fist. and his organization bent to his will. There are many analogs to contemporary politics, and a careful reader will spot them. I bought the Kindle book so that I could identify sections in the recordings that struck my interest.
'

Concise and enlightening - lessons for our time

I selected this book based on a 1-star review that popped up when I selected this book from the audible app. The very long 1-star review accused the book of partisanship for suggesting parallels between the rise of the Nazis and current political conditions in the United States. Many readers of history have seen those same parallels and have expressed concern. I purchased the book with the suspicion that it was an accurate reflection of reality...and it is.
The author presents factual information about the attitudes and actions of the German people in addition to their would be leaders. The evidence includes personal memoirs, transcripts and news reports of the time. At no point does the author make direct comparisons between then and now. The 1-star reviewer must have seen the parallels between the rise of Nazism and the current political situation in the U.S. all by himself--and he is not wrong. The 1-star reviewer wrote his review before an angry mob marched on the U.S. capitol building on January 6th, 2021 to intimidate lawmakers engaged in the task of certifying the 2020 presidential election. Hitler and company burned the German Reichstag building. Trump launched an insurrectionist mob against ours. Parallels?
An underlying theme of this, and other books like it (William Shirer's "The Collapse of the Third Republic" comes to mind), is a distaste for democracy itself by those living under it. In each case a group of people devoted to a particular ideology could not stand the compromises demanded of democratic rule. They had all the answers and everyone who disagreed with them was a threat to the nation itself. Elections only allowed lesser people to express themselves--people whose ideas weren't worthy of consideration according to the ideologues. So why bother with elections at all? Why, for that matter, even honor the results of elections?
This book shows how fragile democratic institutions can be. It illustrates how political divisions, based on perceived ideological incompatibility, can lead to a distrust of democracy itself. When a large enough subset of a population believes that democracy cannot solve its problems or, worse still, that democracy itself is a problem, that democracy doesn't have long to live.
If the 1-star reviewer saw parallels between then and now, maybe it isn't a partisan book. Maybe it's a truthful book and those comparisons are accurate. Rather than reject the book and throw it on a burning pile of disagreeable books (where have we seen that before?), perhaps we should heed the warnings that this book illuminates.

Too Close for Comfort

Incredible history and a warning for anyone paying attention. A must read. Well done
great

Vivid and fascinating account of history. Dismal command of German language by narrator.

This is an extremely informative audiobook and makes learning about history a joy. Unfortunately the narrator Steven Crossley is not in command of the German language and the German words, names and terms sprinkled throughout the book don’t even remotely resemble the German language. For a German native speaker like myself this puts a damper on the joy derived from the otherwise very engaging reading.

Truly Terrifying

Everyone who is concerned about what is happening in The United States today and everyone who thinks it can't happen here needs to listen to this!

Brilliant, topical and thoroughly enjoyable

For the first time in the many books I've been through on ww2, an author was able to provide enough context for each major event in fall of the Weimar Republic that I could grasp the parallels to today in ways I've never imagined.

Required Reading in the Time of Trump

If our schools could only teach about one chapter in history, it should be this. I am an educated person, a lawyer, and an interested student of history. At the conclusion of this book, I marveled at how I could have possibly gotten to this point in my life without having ever learned of the details of Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. This book is beyond interesting. It’s terrifying.

Eerily familiar to todays political climate in US

If you are a voting age, you need to read this book. It demonstrates how a political party can be hijacked and used to put forth the agenda of an entirely different ideology. For those who think this cannot happen today, think again, read this book, read about how it happened in history and how one of the world's Darkest Hours unfolded.