Very very interesting. Also, very very scary how similar events are happening now. ( )

An incredible/tragic story of Hitler's rise to power. I had always assumed he took over by force - there was some strong-arming involved, but for the most part, not so .....

This book is well written, and I would highly recommend it. ( )

Very well written and organized - I knew the outline of the story, but this book filled in many of the blanks. Outstanding - should've been subtitled "Ominous Parallels". ( )

A solid chronicle of one of the most riveting and puzzling developments in history. The last few chapters were cumbersome; many characters tried to manipulate Hitler, or to manipulate other characters close to Hitler, but it was too convoluted to keep track of all of them and the narrative itself started feeling tired, even exasperated by the incompetence and shortsightedness of the Weimar politicians, so much so that those feelings flowed to the reader. By the last few pages -- where the author expertly summarizes his key points, answering the key question of the book in a substantive and original way -- I was happy for the book to be over.

List of similarities between Trump's America and Hitler's Germany, as gleaned from Hett:
-vote share. The Nazis only got as high as 37 percent in the elections, aka Trump base levels
-allergy to truth. In Germany, many people couldn't look truth in the face, clutching on to the "stab in the back" myth invented by Hindenburg and other conservatives that they lost WWI due to home front betrayal by Jews and socialists and republicans.
-right-wing fake news media spreading this allergy to truth
-"...in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods." -Hitler, Mein Kampf. Trump must've studied this hard
-Trump being a little POS narcissist, just like Hitler, who remembered personal insults for decades, and just like Goebbels, who pretended in his diary that an entire derby crowd didn't jeer at him
-Christian conservatives trying to appease Hitler/Trump to save capitalism / keep workers' wages down ( )

The story of the fall of the progressive Weimar Republic and the subsequent rise of Nazism in 1920s and 30s Germany is a complex one, but Benjamin Hett has produced one of the most compelling readable recent books on the subject. Each section starts with vignettes that shows the impact of the political turmoil on everyday people by telling some personal stories - a technique that grounds the broader narrative with relatable context. The political story is also well handled, lucid, and engaging. Early in the introduction Hett makes the observation that today’s political climate is closer to the 1930s than that of the 1990s, but then let’s the reader draw their own parallels and conclusions (many of which are uncomfortable). Overall as well as being an excellent historical account that examines the question “how did that happen?”, it’s also a reminder of just how fragile democracy can be. The book ends with the sentiment “We who come later have one advantage over them: we have their example before us.” Let’s hope that we do indeed use that advantage and heed the lessons learned. ( )