CATASTROPHE: 1/8: Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power Hardcover – Deckle Edge, by Timothy W. Ryback (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 3 September 2024
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Takeover-Hitlers-Final-Rise-Power/dp/0593537424
From the internationally acclaimed author of Hitler’s Private Library, a dramatic recounting of the six critical months before Adolf Hitler seized power, when the Nazi leader teetered between triumph and ruin.
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 million votes. As membership hemorrhaged and financial backers withdrew, the Nazi Party threatened to fracture. Hitler talked of suicide. The New York Times declared he was finished. Yet somehow, in a few brief weeks, he was chancellor of Germany.
In facinating detail and with previously un-accessed archival materials, Timothy W. Ryback tells the remarkable story of Hitler’s dismantling of democracy through democratic process. He provides fresh perspective and insights into Hitler’s personal and professional lives in these months, in all their complexity and uncertainty—backroom deals, unlikely alliances, stunning betrayals, an ill-timed tax audit, and a fateful weekend that changed our world forever. Above all, Ryback details why a wearied Hindenburg, who disdained the “Bohemian corporal,” ultimately decided to appoint Hitler chancellor in January 1933. Within weeks, Germany was no longer a democracy.
1913 REICHSTAG
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World with John Bachelor. |
| 0:05.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World with John Bachelor. |
| 0:10.0 | Here's John Bachelor. |
| 0:12.0 | This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Bachelor. |
| 0:16.0 | This is CBS, High on the World. I'm John Bachelor. It is August 13, 1932. |
| 0:20.0 | Berlin. |
| 0:21.0 | I welcome Timothy Radak. He is the author of a new book, Takeover, Hitler's final rise to power. |
| 0:28.0 | Tim is the co-founder and director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation at the Hague. |
| 0:36.0 | He speaks to me from Berlin itself, and we're speaking of moments between August 13, 1932, and January 30th, 1933, in which everything changes |
| 0:47.9 | for Germany, for Europe, and I will say for the century, 20th century and it's still underway the |
| 0:55.6 | transformation of the maps and of loyalties these many decades. |
| 1:00.8 | Tim a very good evening to you. Thank you very much. At that date, |
| 1:05.5 | the Dow you report is at 41.22, its lowest ever. Berlin is clear, a clear sky that day, and meeting, importantly, are two men whose fate |
| 1:17.7 | will be intertwined forever. |
| 1:20.0 | One is Paul Thund Hindenburg, the 84-year-old statue-esque German military man who's |
| 1:27.5 | become the president of the Reich giving him constitutional power to name and unnamed governments, to name and |
| 1:35.0 | unnamed chancellors. He's being introduced to a man, Adolf Hitler, who believes |
| 1:40.3 | he's about to be the new chancellor of Germany and he says to Hitler at one |
| 1:45.5 | point without sitting down are you personally willing to place yourself at my |
| 1:52.3 | disposal for participating in the government, |
| 1:55.0 | question mark, to which Adolf Hitler answers nine. |
| 2:00.1 | Please interpret that sentence and that scene. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

