The rise and demise of the Weimar Republic is the subject of two startlingly timely books- Harald Jahner’s aptly titled ‘Vertigo’ focused on the civic and cultural aspects of the era and Volker Ullrich’s ‘Fateful Hours’ is an immersive analysis of the internal political and social wars that led to the collapse of Germany’s first Democratic Republic and the rise of the Nazi Party.
After Armistice in 1918, Germany staggered to recover from its devastating military losses on the battlefield and at homefront. Ullrich stays laser focused on the volcanic politics that simmered among an array of fractious movements vying for post-war political reconstruction. Ullrich’s writes a deep analysis of the ideologic turf wars among Communists, Socialists and Democratic movements- left, right, and malleable center.
Germany’s Kaiser Willheim II abdicated and was in exile and the leader of the Social Democratic Party, Frederich Ebert, a former saddle-maker, was elected the country’s first president in 1919 serving until his death in 1925. He was succeeded by German military statesman Erick von Hindenburg from 1925 until his death in 1934.
Ebert proved to be the right leader for the moment as to coalesce the Weimar’s first coalition as a democratic republic. He was committed to building a parliamentary administration and to administer untested governance to keep moving in the political center enough to garner the most representative electorate
But Germany’s new government was dysfunctional right out of the gate on many levels as strife festered and violence escalated early on after the government agreed to the provisions laid out in the Versailles Treaty. This not only required Germany to cede territory as collateral, but required that its leaders sign-off on full reparations and full blame for inciting WWI- a charge that the Germans rejected.
Meanwhile, by the early 20s, Ebert and his shaky administration had enough periods of stabilization and promise that the Weimar was building a functioning democracy. But already there were factions forming alliances to sabotage the Weimar government just as it was getting its footing.
By the mid-20s, there were periods of relative stability, and even international investment contributing toward Germany’s reformation. But for most of the population, times couldn’t have been worse. And politically there was always the threat of coups, general strikes, unrest among large swaths of citizens igniting what amounted to regional civil wars.
The collective uncertainty ignited a devil-make care manifesto inspired by the jazz-age night life in the cities and there was even a nationwide dance craze and an era of artistic renaissance free expression and individual freedom, social and artistic trends that are brilliantly captured in Jahner’s ’Vertigo.’
For millions of Germans every aspect of normal life was unstable. There were deliberate tactics from power brokers on the hard right that incited a cauldron of power grabs, back room money deals that divided loyalties, and fostered adversarial alliances.
Ullrich dives deep into key events provoked political firestorms and civil unrest, the short list includes the assassination of Walther Rathenau, the Jewish foreign minister who worked to broker the reparations of the Versailles Treaty and was targeted by the far-right; the French invading German borders to occupy territory of Weimar region, seizing assets to repay war reparations; the collapse of the Reichsmark resulting in mass unemployment, and skyrocketing inflation. The US stock market crashed in 1929 resulted also created an irrevocable setback as US investors started to pull out of investments in Germany and loan agreements.
Ullrich unravels the maze of political entanglements in Germany at the time from the transitional architects of the adversarial communist and democratic reformers, the conservative moderates, hold-over monarchists and other adversarial players. Caught in the middle of all of this and paying the biggest price is the working class, unions forced to threatening or convene general strikes at odds.
These events and others set the stage for the rise of the National Social Party. Hitler was out of prison for staging his failed coup in November 1923 ( Beer Hall Putsch)and had published his manifesto “Mein Kampf”, his dictatorial message was resonating with large segments of the population.
After Ebert’s death in 1925, Hindenburg was still maintaining, but eroding functional parliamentary government. But by the end of the decade, he did not want to run for reelection but was talked into it. Hitler was campaigning to become Chancellor and demanding that he would have total governmental power. Even though von Hindenburg was warned that he couldn’t keep Hitler in check, he accepted that he would abide by the German constitution.
Chronicles the plots, unrest, dissenters on all sides itching for stand-offs. Opposition parties, public and private, as Ullrich tracks, reveal how equally shaky all sides of this equation continued to be and in particular how the Weimar’s enemies, including the burgeoning Nazi Party, still could have been stopped.
In 1933, Hindenburg rejected Hitler’s demand that, if he were named chancellor, he would command total power over the parliament. The Hitler’s National Socialist party had also started to splinter, and losing voter support in the most recent election Yet, just months later, with Hindenburg convincing himself that Hitler could be kept in line to and buying the dictator’s assurance that he would abide by the Weimar’s constitution, Hitler was named Chancellor and the rest is catastrophic history. But as Ullrich reveals, as late as 1933, Hindenburg and his councils deluded themselves into thinking they could control Hitler. Hindenburg only agreed to name him as chancellor if the other cabinet members put a check on his power, even though they were aware of Hitler stated mission was to have supreme power.
Its dystopian lessons more than echo our current state of National and International affairs. Start with the incitement of antisemitism and hate campaigns in the dystopian movement that espoused Aryan heritage and blood ‘purity’ by naming and blaming non-Aryan Germans and immigrants. The ‘other’ blamed for the Germany’s collapse included homosexuals, gypsies, humans with dark skin, immigrants, artists, academics, and the ill, infirm or physically challenged. And one branded as unworthy of the Third Reich.
Even absorbing all of Ullrich’s stellar political deconstruction and analysis of the fall of the Weimar, what are the missing pieces that vaulted Hitler to ultimate power, what back room deals disappeared in the fogs of war when the Nazis Party was defeated five years on and what lesson that fact, indeed, reveals now, as the 250 year old battlements of our democracy are being torn down in plain sight.
After Hitler seized power, all of the political chess pieces were moved around for a ‘wait and see’ perspective. Within months Hitler dismantled every that existed in Germany. Outside the National Socialist Party, “everything has been…. destroyed, dispersed, dissolved, incorporated or absorbed.” French diplomat Francois Pouncer concluded in early July 1933 Hitler had “ Won the game with little effort… All he had to do was huff and puff. And the edifice of German politics collapsed like a house of cards.”
Ullrich has written a two volume biography of Hitler and in his stirring afterward in ‘Fateful Hours’ he warns –
“ Now the future of the Liberal Democrats worldwide is once more in jeopardy, in the United States, but also in Europe and in Germany. There is still time to prevent a slip Into darkness. It depends on us, on how we act, how we protest, and how we stand up to the authoritarian sirens. That tried to lure us into the abyss. Our time is now, Let’s not be the ones who dropped the ball.”
To say the least, the Weimar history and the details of its collapse resonate now, as we all know- switch out the names, seditious propaganda and so much more political criminality, and Ullrich’s Weimar history reads like the instruction manual for the Trump regime’s Project 2025.
