This is John Batchel, a conversation with Timothy Ryback, his book, Takeover, Hitler's final rise to power.

This is the summer of 1932 to the winter, end of January, 1933.

The story is flabbergasting, the unlikeliness of event after event.

And herein, the author Timothy Ryback describes Gerbilt's mocking the process that they had designed to take over Germany,

mocking it, about democracy, about how it can be used by its enemies. Timothy Ryback, on Gerbil's mocking democracy, about how it can be used by its enemies.

Timothy Ryback on Goebbels mocking the very concept of democracy in the Reichstag.

More of this later.

I was going to say, is that Joseph Goebbels, who was one of Hitler's first delegates in the Reichstag, you know, said explicitly, you know, the sort of the,

the funniest thing or the craziest thing about democracy is that they give its mortal enemies

the tools to its own destruction. And so the National Socialists saw

when they got into the Reichstag,

they did not come in, as Gubel said,

we don't come as friends,

we don't come as neutrals,

we come as your mortal enemies.

And they entered the house

with the intention of burning it down.