Fateful Hours The Collapse of the Weimar Republic

*‘A master storyteller’ The Times***

Democracies are fragile. Freedoms that seem secure can be lost. Few historical events illustrate this as vividly as the failure of the Weimar Republic.

Fateful Hours tells one of the greatest dramas in world history: the failure of Germany’s first democracy, culminating in the horrific rise of the Third Reich.

But this tragedy was not inevitable. In this gripping new book, celebrated historian Volker Ullrich charts the many failed alternatives and missed opportunities that contributed to German democracy’s collapse. In an immersive style that takes us to the heart of political power, Ullrich argues that, right up until January 1933, history was open – just as in the present, it is up to us whether democracy lives or dies.

Reviews

In his hands, the death of the Weimar Republic is a parable of missed opportunities to save liberal democracy… Elegant… A master storyteller

The Times

An engaging retelling of a momentous era of history… a close-up view of the flawed political mechanics of a time not entirely unlike our own

Spectator

Ullrich breaks new ground, laying out his case in illuminating granularity, moving inch by inch through the political machinations… Gives the reader an ominously clear view of the step-by-step buildup to Nazism, and all of the moments it could have been stopped, but wasn’t

New York Times

Immersive, masterful and profoundly disturbing… Outstanding… likely to be studied for decades or more as a standard work on the Weimar tragedy

Irish Independent

A gripping and timely warning from history

James Hawes, author of 'The Shortest History of Germany'

Volker Ullrich proves that German historians can also write elegantly and captivatingly. More exciting than many a thriller

Der Spiegel

An exciting non-fiction book that reads like a novel

Berlin.Table

Ullrich shows in a lively, reportage-like style that the decline of the first German democracy from 1918 to 1933 was not inevitable. An important book

HÖRZU

A vivid book with lessons for today

Die Welt