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The John Batchelor Show

CATASTROPHE: 8/8: Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power Hardcover – Deckle Edge, by Timothy W. Ryback (Author)

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Arts, Books, News, Society & Culture

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2024

⏱️ 8 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

CATASTROPHE: 8/8: Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power Hardcover – Deckle Edge, by Timothy W. Ryback (Author)
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.

1945 BERLIN

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.

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm John Batsch who with Tim Riebach who's done us the great favor of filling in a blank in my reading after a lifetime of reading about these moments when the monsters themselves were created by conditions coming from the Versailles

0:18.5

and the failure of the markets in the 1920s.

0:22.0

We're now January 30th on Wilhelm Strassa and Hindenburg is

0:27.2

sent for Hitler. It's 940 in the morning. Tim is very detailed about this.

0:33.0

When Hitler's Mercedes calls for him to take him to the meeting with Hindenburg, Hitler

0:38.3

believes that he will now be made Chancellor.

0:41.4

However, he needs a majority and he doesn't have it. So he needs a man

0:46.6

named Hooganburg and we talked about before. And Hooganburg is aware that he has to be

0:52.2

part of this coalition and defer in some fashion to Hitler,

0:55.2

but he's reluctant.

0:57.1

Tim, this is a scene that you want to rewrite many times.

1:01.2

What is Hooganberg's thinking that morning? Can he keep this from happening?

1:05.0

Does he want more for joining the coalition? What are his thoughts?

1:10.0

Well, Hugenberg has what he needs his entire career to be part of government.

1:15.3

He sees himself as the potential being minister of economics.

1:23.0

He's a businessman.

1:25.4

It's a tremendous opportunity.

1:28.2

He also knows that he is, he has,

1:32.1

he's the one man with the power to make or break Adolf Hitler at that moment.

1:38.6

Why?

1:40.3

He, in the November 6th election, he ended up with a million votes that Hitler had lost,

1:49.4

which means Hooganberg had 40 seats in the Reichsag.

...

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