Death of Democracy After WWI in Germany

Presented by Bob Lewis, Captain, U.S. Navy, Retired

The Nazi seizure of power after World War I, with the resulting collapse of the Weimar Republic, was the great political catastrophe of the twentieth century. The result was the unlikely ascent to dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. The story of how Germany turned from democracy to dictatorship in the fifteen years following World War I is not a simple one. And the story has disturbing resonances for our own time. How could an educated and developed country like Germany fall for Adolf Hitler? Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power? We know what this led to: the death of democracy for Germany and World War II. To say that Hitler was elected is too simple. He never would have come to power if Germany’s leading politicians had not responded to a spate of populist insurgencies by trying to co-opt him—a strategy based on misguided conservative politicians. This is a powerful lesson for today when democracy once again finds itself embattled and the siren song of strongmen sounds even louder.