Jerusalem Post publishes review of book on the decline of Weimar Germany
Victor Sebestyen’s book Weimar Germany: Death of a Democracy is devoted to the history of Germany and Berlin between 1918 and 1933. In its review, the Jerusalem Post notes that the author portrays the Weimar Republic as a period of democratic transformation and cultural development, while also marked by political radicalization, antisemitism, and economic upheaval.
The Pantheon edition is 480 pages long and costs $35. According to the reviewer, Sebestyen argues that Adolf Hitler’s rise to power was not inevitable. According to the book’s author, this process was influenced by exceptional circumstances, moral weakness, political opportunism, and failure.
Berlin of the Weimar Republic
The author describes Berlin as a city where, in 1922, a quarter of all German Jews lived. Literature, cinema, and music flourished in the city, and many Jews felt at home there. The Jewish physician Magnus Hirschfeld founded the world’s first LGBT organization in Berlin, while the Jewish scholar Hugo Preuss drafted the constitution of the new republic.
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At the same time, nationalist and antisemitic sentiments were intensifying. Nationalists called the Weimar Republic a “Jewish republic” and celebrated the 1922 murder of Jewish Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau. Albert Einstein was also on the Freikorps target list and feared an assassination attempt.
The rise of the Nazis
Sebestyen describes how, after World War I, the paramilitary Freikorps formations suppressed revolutionary uprisings. President Friedrich Ebert deployed them together with the army to suppress challenges to the Weimar Republic. In the author’s view, attempts by left-wing forces to gain power through undemocratic means diverted attention from the threat posed by right-wing radicals.
After the 1929 stock market crash, unemployment in Germany rose sharply: by mid-1932, six million people were out of work. At an early stage, the Nazi Party received financial support from piano manufacturer Carl Bechstein and steel magnate Fritz Thyssen. In 1932, Hitler lost the presidential election to Paul von Hindenburg but claimed that the election had allegedly been stolen. The review also notes that Hindenburg’s inner circle believed it would be able to control the Nazi leader.
