Biggest mistake

I often schedule posts for publication at 12:05 am. Last night (12:05 this morning) I finished Timothy Ryback’s Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power, my six-day immersion into the six months prior to Adolf Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor by Germany’s President, Paul von Hindenburg.

Eleven chapters cover the last three months ending January, 1933. The title of the 22nd and final chapter is “January 30, 1933.” I read this book over the last six days of January, during the first ten days of the new administration in Washington, DC, which felt like another authoritarian takeover.

In January, 1933, the Nazi Party was broke and appeared defeated. Newspaper magnate Alfred Hugenberg, chair of the rival German National People’s Party, controlled a block of Reichstag delegates that would either make or break Hitler’s quest to be Germany’s Chancellor. Ryback wrote:

Hitler’s archrival sent him a 3-page letter and an olive branch. Hugenberg wrote of his “deep concern” about the long-term future of the conservative nationalist movement as a whole. He worried that the centrists were planning to siphon votes from the radical right into a coalition with the Social Democrats, tipping the political scales dangerously to the left, possibly into the hands of the Communists. (p. 215)

Hitler needed Hugenberg’s delegates. Hugenberg wanted to be Minister of Economics. They cut a deal. Hindenburg reluctantly appointed Hitler Chancellor and Hugenberg to the cabinet. The next day, January 31, 1933, Hugenberg told a friend, “I just made the biggest mistake of my life.” (p. 301)

From “The document that might have stopped Hitler,” by T.O.I. staff, The Times of Israel, March 14, 2014.

Massive minority mandates

In 2024, Donald Trump received 49.8% of votes cast. Kamala Harris received 48.3%. It was 77,284,118 to 74,999,166 of 156,302,318. Last week, Mr. Trump’s speech (by teleconference) at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, began with these words:

…      This has been a truly historic week in the United States.  Three days ago, I took the oath of office, and we began the golden age of America.  The recent presidential election was won by millions of votes …. It was a massive mandate from the American people like hasn’t been seen in many years. ...

Mr. Trump considers his win by 2,284,952 votes, or 1.46%, to be a “massive mandate,” won “by millions of votes.” In politics, as in football, a win by one or two points can have “massive” significance.

Timothy Ryback’s recent article in The Atlantic describes the German election of 1933, which gave the National Socialist (Nazi) Party 37% of 600 German Reichstag (now Bundestag) seats, part of a right wing coalition that controlled 51% of the seats. Adolf Hitler was a compromise choice for Chancellor, but he told an American reporter he believed his 75% of 51% was enough to grant him absolute authority.

Hitler opened his first cabinet meeting “boasting that millions of Germans had welcomed his chancellorship with ‘jubilation,’ then outlined his plans for expunging key government officials and filling their positions with loyalists.” From “How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days,” by Timothy Ryback, The Atlantic, January 8, 2025. The next few posts will focus on Ryback’s March 2024 book, Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power.