To tell you the truth, I've read a lot on nazi Germany but never understood how that psycho Hitler got in power. Yea, he gave good speaches and ran in the right circles, but it always seemed like the majority of people in the government weren't keen on him, so how, exactly, did he take over everything? This book has a clear story of how that happened that I haven't seen so well laid out in any other book.
The Weimar Republic had so much hope at its creation and it hurts to look back and see all the flaws that lead to its destruction. Its downfall was basically giving too much power to one man, Hindenburg. The role of chancellor of Germany changed hands 23 times during the Weimar Republic. No one served more than 2 years and some odd days. Sometimes guys were removed and reinstated a few months later. It was stupid and all because Hindenburg. Though he never explicitly stated it, he seems to have wanted himself in the role essentially. He wanted a puppet strong enough to keep the rest of the government in check. But, of course, anyone smart enough to do that wouldn't follow Hindenburg blindly, which was what he wanted. Every time a chancellor disagreed, Hindenburg would remove him, or make sure that party wasn't in a position to keep the chancellorship. When Hitler was finally given the position, Hindenburg lamented that there were no other options, but in the (about) 2 years leading up to that unfortunate event, there were THREE guys all doing ok, or even good, jobs. They just weren't doing exactly as Hindenburg wanted. So he kept plotting and yanking them until only Hitler was left on the field. Then the asshole promptly dies and Hitler is uncontested right at Germany's most volunerable moment with social anger running high, out of control inflation and nationwide shortages of everything. Germans wanted someone to blame and Hitler pointed the finger.
