JUNE 2018 - AudioFile
Steven Crossley gives a near-perfect narration of Hett’s well-written and researched account of how the German experiment in democracy, the Weimar Republic, came to be replaced by the Nationalist Socialists, the Nazis. What struck this reviewer is that all the parties involved seem to have favored statism—a centrally controlled government. The Weimar Republic really was nothing like what we in the Anglo-American world have experienced as democracy. It was all about the power. Crossley’s British accent gives his narration an academic-sounding quality quite fitting for the text. He is clear and precise in pronunciation and enunciation and is suitably expressive throughout. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - Timothy Snyder
We ask about the rise of the Nazis from what we think is a great distance. We take for granted that the Germans of the 1930s were quite different from ourselves, and that our consideration of their errors will only confirm our superiority. The opposite is the case…In The Death of Democracy, [Hett's] extremely fine study of the end of constitutional rule in Germany, he dissolves those comforting assumptions. He is not discussing a war in which Germans were enemies or describing atrocities that we are sure we could never commit. He presents Hitler's rise as an element of the collapse of a republic confronting dilemmas of globalization with imperfect instruments and flawed leaders. With careful prose and fine scholarship, with fine thumbnail sketches of individuals and concise discussions of institutions and economics, he brings these events close to us.
Publishers Weekly
03/05/2018
Hett, an associate professor of history at Hunter College and CUNY, persuasively challenges familiar arguments that the rise of Nazi Germany was an inevitable consequence of abstract forces like racism, militarism, and capitalism. Hitler’s appointment as chancellor in 1933 was, he argues, a political gambit orchestrated by “a small circle of powerful men... who sought to take advantage of his demagogic gifts and mass following to advance their own agenda.” This cabal of businessmen, generals, and administrators held Hitler and his message in contempt and were confident they could use and discard him, detaching him from his base and shepherding his followers into a conventional right-wing authoritarian system. Hett’s page-turning account lays out the dire consequences of their simultaneously underrating Hitler’s ability and grievously overestimating their power. He demonstrates that Hitler played a deeper game, exploiting his opponents’ narrow self-interests and using sophisticated sleight of hand to score and build on seemingly inconsequential successes. The increasing bewilderment of this cabal defies conventional explanation, but Hett concludes with a possible clue: the “incongruous innocence” of a society unable to imagine that the worst could happen. Scholars and general readers alike will learn something from Hett’s credible analysis of right-wing power brokers’ role in Hitler’s ascent. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
Named "Book of the Week" by CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS
"At a time of deep distress over the stability of democracy in America and elsewhere, Benjamin Carter Hett's chronicle of the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Adolf Hitler could not be more timely. 'The Death of Democracy' makes for chilling reading." — Roger Lowenstein, The Washington Post
“[An] extremely fine study of the end of constitutional rule in Germany. . . . With careful prose and fine scholarship, with fine thumbnail sketches of individuals and concise discussions of institutions and economics, . . . [Benjamin Carter Hett] sensitively describes a moral crisis that preceded a moral catastrophe.” — Timothy Snyder, The New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice)
"If this is an oft-told and tragic tale, Hett's brisk and lucid study offers compelling new perspectives inspired by current threats to free societies around the world. . . . It is both eerie and enlightening how much of Hett's account rings true in our time." — E. J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post
“Particularly instructive. . . . a penetrating study of how Nazism overtook the Weimar Republic. Hett never mentions Trump; the societal parallels are, of course, far from exact. But his account carries a troubling and clearly intentional resonance.” — Richard North Patterson, Huffington Post
"Intelligent, well-informed... intriguing. Hett provides a lesson about the fragility of democracy and the danger of that complacent belief that liberal institutions will always protect us." — The Times (London)
“Fascinating. . . . Readable and well-researched.” — Nicholas Shakespeare, The Daily Telegraph
"Intelligently written. . . . a fast-paced narrative enlivened by vignette and character sketches. . . . Hett reminds us that violence was at [fascism's] core. But he also insists that Hitler did not prevail because Weimar was doing badly. On the contrary, it was doing remarkably well in tough conditions: the end came because conservative elites thought they could use the Nazis for their own purposes and realised their mistake too late." — Mark Mazower, Financial Times
"Hett also reminds us that Hitler was deliberately enabled by conservative elites, especially business leaders and military commanders, who wanted the electoral votes of the Nazi movement and were willing to overlook its excesses to achieve their goals. . . . Hitler was also enabled by a disaffected public ‘increasingly prone to aggressive myth-making and irrationality.’ . . . At no point does Hett mention any current political figure by name, but his warning is nonetheless loud, clear, and urgent.” — Booklist
“How did Adolf Hitler, an obvious extremist, con a nation into backing him? This historical essay answers the question, to often unsettling effect. . . . A provocative, urgent history with significant lessons for today.” — Kirkus Reviews
"Persuasively challenges familiar arguments that the rise of Nazi Germany was an inevitable consequence of abstract forces. . . [A] page-turning account."—Publishers Weekly
“A brilliant account of the twentieth century’s great political catastrophe: the Nazi capture of power. Full of arresting images and ideas, this gripping new book charts the rise and fall of the first German republic, and the unlikely victory of Adolf Hitler. A timely reminder of the fragility of democracy and the dangers of extreme nationalism.”—Nikolaus Wachsmann, author of KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps
“The story of how Germany turned from democracy to dictatorship in the fifteen years following World War I is not a simple one. But the moral lessons are exceptionally clear. Benjamin Carter Hett honors that complexity in this account while never straying from the path of moral clarity. An outstanding accomplishment.”—Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge
“Benjamin Carter Hett is one of the few historians who is able to think out of the box and knows how to tell a story well – without simplifying it. His new book tackles one of the most interesting questions in German history: How was it possible that an educated and developed country like Germany could fall for Adolf Hitler?”
—Stefan Aust, editor of Die Welt, former editor of Der Spiegel, and author of The Baader-Meinhof Complex
“The Death of Democracy is a thought-provoking new look at the collapse of German democracy in 1930-34 with a clear and careful emphasis on those individuals who operated behind the scenes to bring Hitler to power. Benjamin Carter Hett also offers insight into the steps Hitler took to consolidate his power.”
—Gerhard L. Weinberg, professor emeritus of history, University of North Carolina
“Histories of Nazi Germany can be overwhelming. The Death of Democracy is carefully focused on the conditions and cynical choices that enabled Nazism, in just a few years turning one of the world’s most advanced and liberal societies into a monstrosity. Its author is also that rarity, a specialist who writes lucidly and engagingly. In this post-truth, alternative-facts American moment, The Death of Democracy is essential reading.” —Kurt Andersen, author of Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History
JUNE 2018 - AudioFile
Steven Crossley gives a near-perfect narration of Hett’s well-written and researched account of how the German experiment in democracy, the Weimar Republic, came to be replaced by the Nationalist Socialists, the Nazis. What struck this reviewer is that all the parties involved seem to have favored statism—a centrally controlled government. The Weimar Republic really was nothing like what we in the Anglo-American world have experienced as democracy. It was all about the power. Crossley’s British accent gives his narration an academic-sounding quality quite fitting for the text. He is clear and precise in pronunciation and enunciation and is suitably expressive throughout. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-02-06
How did Adolf Hitler, an obvious extremist, con a nation into backing him? This historical essay answers the question, to often unsettling effect.Hett (History/Hunter Coll.; Burning the Reichstag: An Investigation into the Third Reich's Enduring Mystery, 2013) observes that, by design, Hitler entered the German government with only two of his fellow Nazis holding cabinet-level positions. He wanted to appear powerless, it seems, and to give the impression that the right-wingers who had put him into office, who "sought to take advantage of Hitler's demagogic gifts and mass following to advance their own agenda," were actually in control of the situation. In the context of the Weimar Republic, whose system of representational democracy inadvertently splintered any organized resistance, Hitler was able to build an effective right-wing alliance that, in time, caused liberals to wonder whether democracy itself might be to blame if someone like Hitler could gain votes. It was "monstrous," one Berlin paper wrote, that so large a portion of the electorate had supported "the commonest, hollowest and crudest charlatanism," even as establishment conservatives bridled at having to work with what Paul von Hindenburg called "the Bohemian private"—but did so anyway. One constitutional crisis later, in the form of the burning of the Reichstag—the work, very likely, of the stormtroopers themselves—and democracy was suspended, the fate of the Jews and political opponents effectively settled, and war practically inevitable. It doesn't take too much of a stretch to find uncomfortable historical parallels in the current political scene, and Hett, though careful to support each of his assertions with scholarship, doesn't shy away from those possibilities. In the end, he writes, what won Hitler his power was the assent of the disaffected, who forgave him his sins and excesses in the hope that he would provide for them "the fastest and easiest solutions to their own particular problems."A provocative, urgent history with significant lessons for today.
