A review by hawkia75
The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic by Benjamin Carter Hett

4.0

Hett gives a succinct history on the democracy of the Weimar era, and the way the miscalculations of many people led to the suspension of the Constitution and the Nazi power grab. I'm not a scholar of history by any means, but Hett gives enough background context and detail without getting bogged down. This is one of many (so many!) examinations of the time, but this was written in 2018 to give particular emphasis to our current political situation, although he doesn't mention anyone by name. Where have we seen a democracy being undermined by a populist demagogue who is brought to power by conservatives who underestimate his lunacy in an attempt to stave off a center-left political alliance? Parallels? What parallels? He doesn't make a one to one comparison, perhaps not wanting to lose out by invocation of Godwin's law, but also because Hitler and the circumstances of the Weimar Republic really were sui generis. But one can hopefully learn something from history, which I've heard doesn't quite repeat itself as much as it rhymes.