These two volumes, both by well-respected scholars, provide short, well-written, thoughtful accounts of why and how Hitler and the Nazis could have come to power in a Western democracy such as Germany. They are aimed at an audience more encompassing than just the circle of professional historians. Mitcham (Hitler's Field Marshals, Madison, 1993) deals with the broader aspects of the subject. Beginning with the end of World War I, he draws upon established historical research to cover the social, political, military, economic, and personal forces that contributed to Hitler's rise to power. His short account distills a huge literature into a readable study that covers the main themes effectively and understandably. Turner (editor, Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant, Yale Univ., 1985) focuses on Hitler's actual accession to the chancellorship of Germany during January 1933. He is concerned with the main players in the politics of the takeover and in his final chapter provides an elegant summing-up of some possible answers to the enduring questions. Turner has used a variety of documentary sources, including materials newly available in the Moscow archives, to provide a model of scholarly work. Both books provide valuable insights for any library collection that includes European history; Turner's book is likely to be the definitive study of its subject for years to come.-Barbara L. Walden, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Turner (History/Yale; ed., Hitler: Memoirs of a Confidant, 1985, etc.) presents a compelling day-by-day account of the final month of unlikely parliamentary maneuvers that led to Adolf Hitler's appointment as Germany's chancellor in January 1933.
By the autumn of 1932, Hitler's Nazi movement seemed in decline. Riven by internal disputes and hurt by competing right- wing movements, the Nazis had polled poorly in the November 1932 Reichstag elections. Also, although the Nazis retained a powerful presence in the chamber because of a July 1932 electoral triumph, their parliamentary clout was diminished by the Reichstag's impotence: The chamber was hamstrung by large factions of right- and left-wing extremists, and Germany's president, Paul von Hindenburg, and the cabinets appointed by him ruled largely by fiat. Hitler's key to power lay in the hands of Hindenburg and in the two former army officers who held the chancellorship immediately before Hitler, Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher. Turner makes clear that without Hindenburg's obtuseness, Schleicher's ineptitude, and Papen's overweening ambition, Hitler would not have been appointed chancellor. Schleicher, formerly a friend of Papen's, made it possible for him to become chancellor. Papen, tremendously unpopular as chancellor, exploited his close relationship with Hindenburg to have Hitler appointed because he felt he could control the Nazis. Based on Hitler's false assurances, Papen overcame Hindenburg's revulsion to Hitler. After his appointment, Hitler immediately took steps to consolidate his own power and achieve access to the president's emergency powers, which he used to destroy the Weimar Republic and create his dictatorship. In assessing responsibility for Hitler's rise, Turner makes the interesting argument that a military dictatorship by the likes of Schleicher or Papen, although abhorrent, would have been preferable to the establishment of Hitler as dictator.
Turner gives a chilling account of how the failure of democratic processes can give rise to dictatorship.
