El ascenso de Hitler al poder : 1932-1933

In 1932, three elections were held in Germany. In the April presidential elections, Hitler lost overwhelmingly to Paul von Hindenburg. In the July general elections, the Nazi Party, which aspired to an absolute majority, won the most votes but only secured 37.3%, an insufficient percentage to form a government. In the November elections, the National Socialist Party won again, although with 34 fewer seats than in July, leaving it even further from forming a government. Hitler had lost two million votes, and his party was burdened by debt. He even spoke of suicide. The New York Times wrote that he was finished. His figure and his party generated widespread rejection among many sectors of German society and the press, and especially among President Hindenburg. However, barely two months later, Hitler was appointed chancellor. What happened between April 1932 and January 1933 that led Germany to cede power to Hitler? How did democracy allow someone who could destroy it to rise to power in this way? Using previously inaccessible archival materials, historian Timothy Ryback has written a detailed chronicle, week by week, day by day, sometimes hour by hour, to explain how a country with a functioning democratic system handed absolute power to someone who never had a substantial majority of votes and whom the political class considered a clown. He provides new insights into Hitler's personal and professional life during those months, in all its complexity and uncertainty: secret agreements, unlikely alliances, astonishing betrayals, an untimely tax audit, and a fateful weekend that changed our world forever. This is a history book and a book for the present. So that no one forgets that Hitler did not seize power, but rather that power was offered to him.