Metropolitan Library System

The definitive account of Hitler's rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany, from the author of The Third Reich in Power and The Third Reich at War.

"The clearest and most gripping account I've read of German life before and during the rise of the Nazis." —A. S Byatt, Times Literary Supplement
"Impressive in its command of an immense literature, perceptive in analysis, fluent in...

The first major study of Stresemann following declassification of his papers in the previous year. Written by Hans W. Gatzke, then a Professor at John Hopkins, who was intrigued by the enigmatic Gustav Stresemann (1878-1929), a German politician and statesman who served briefly as Chancellor in 1923 and Foreign Minister 1923-1929, during the Weimar Republic. He was co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926. His most notable achievement was the...

"In the summer of 1932, the Weimar Republic was on the verge of collapse. One in three Germans was unemployed. Violence was rampant. Hitler's National Socialists surged at the polls. Paul von Hindenburg, an aging war hero and avowed monarchist, was a reluctant president bound by oath to uphold the constitution. The November elections offered Hitler the prospect of a Reichstag majority and the path to political power. But instead, the Nazis lost two...

"In 1923, the far right nearly unraveled the fledgling Weimar Republic. In January of that year, France accused Germany of failing to pay reparations mandated by the Treaty of Versailles, and the French began to occupy the industrial Ruhr district, the heart of the German economy. The German government refused to cooperate with the French occupiers, and the ensuing economic crisis worsened what was already a period of rampant inflation and mass unemployment....