Fateful Hours, the Collapse of the Weimar Republic by Volker Ullrich, review by William Meyers
January 11, 2026
by William P. Meyers

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A lesson in how to kill a democracy

Title: Fateful Hours, The Collapse of the Weimar Republic
author: Volker Ullrich
translator: Jefferson Chase
publishers: W.W. Norton (German: Verlag C.H. Beck oHG)
data: English version 2025 London; German version 2024 Munich

In 1933 Germany's President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler to be Chancellor of Germany. This act was intended to bring the Weimar Republic to an end, but it was not meant to bring Hitler's Nazi (National Socialist German Workers) Party to supremacy. Hindenburg and friends saw Hitler as a pawn who would help them restore the old German monarchy and rebuild the military. Hitler had other ideas.

I happened to be reading The Collapse of the Third Republic by William Shirer, which covers the history of France in the period before World War II, when I heard Fateful Hours would be released. I was reading the Shirer book to understand how an advanced nation like France could screw up so badly. It was really long, about 1000 pages, so Fateful Hours had to wait. I would note that Fateful Hours is much shorter than Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Given that Trump and company may be trying to bring the American experiment in Democracy to an end, the examination of how democracies in France and Germany failed seemed worth reading long, detailed books. Volker Ullrich did a good job keeping his work, excluding notes and index, to under 300 pages [in the hardback version]. Since his focus was on the flaws of the Weimar Republic, rather than simply on Hitler's rise to power, I found it a very good supplement to the Shirer books. And, indeed, it showed how many of the actions of President Trump have direct precedents, not so much in Hitler's actions, as in the actions of President Hindenburg and other right-wing politicians, business people, and military men. I will save the Trump comparisons for a later essay and cover some of Ullrich's key points.

In case you missed it, note that Germany lost World War I, while the British Empire, French Empire, and American Empire were the winners. Germany's monarch, Wilhelm II, abdicated the throne in November 1918. Under Wilhelm II Germany did have a parliament, a legislative body called the Reichstag, but it had little real power.

Different groups in Germany wanted different paths forward after the defeat. The Social Democrats were the most popular party in Germany, but they had a left wing that was impatient for revolution and would later join with the international communists. The German right wing had its monarchists and other authoritarians. There was a center dominated by two Roman Catholic parties, the Catholic Center party (usually called the Center Party by Ullrich) and the Bavarian Party. There was a center-right party (DDP). And a bunch of tiny radical groups, right and left. The future National Socialist, or Nazi party had a few dozen members; Hitler would join it 1919.

Fateful Hours begins with the general strike called in Berlin on November 9, 1918. On October 26 the Reichstag changed the law to mandate a transition to democratic supremacy over the monarch. But revolts on both the left and right pushed the nation into chaos. The Social Democrats called for a national assembly to write a new constitution. Big business representatives agreed to recognize labor unions. A General Counsel of Workers and Soldiers that met on December 16 called for national elections in January 1919. Despite considerably more turmoil and revolts from the left and right (mainly localized), the election took place (notably, women could vote for the first time). The Social Democrats won the most votes, 37.9% but local revolts continued through the year. They convened their first Reichstag in Weimar, hence the Weimar Republic, but then moved back to Berlin. The Treaty of Versailles, signed on 28 June 1919, was highly punitive. Since the Social Democrats were in charge when it was signed, the authoritarian right blamed them (and democracy in general) for the economic collapse and military weakening resulting from the treaty.

The overall point of Fateful Hours seems to be how the Weimar Republic democratic forces were unable to maintain their republic. It narrates mistakes made by the communists, Democratic Socialists, and mainstream democratic parties, but it also shows how the traditional right worked to destroy the republic. Hitler and the Nazis play a secondary role until the last third of the book. It reads like a blueprint that Donald Trump and the MAGA crowd have been following, so I think it is worth anyone who values a free and democratic United States of America to read carefully. Of course many particular circumstances are different.

As late as March 1920 traditional military forces marched on Berlin and proclaimed a new government. On the whole the people of Germany, including much of the army and industrialists, supported the Republic, so the junta failed. "Paul von Hindenburg, the former head of the Army Supreme Command, sympathized with the putschists' aims but disapproved of the course they had taken." A successful general strike was held in support of the Social Democrats and Republic.

After 1920 the Communists gained a significant following seats in the Reichstag. But they wanted a Bolshevik style revolution, so they always undermined the government. The book documents many occasions where the effect of communist actions was to undermine the centrists and mainstream socialists, even voting with the Nazis later in the 1920s. The inability of the left to unite was, at first, compensated for by the inability of the right to unite. But on the whole, communism was a major factor that enabled the Nazi triumph. Of course the communist view was that the social democrats should have all joined with the communists to set up a leftist totalitarian regime, and therefore it was the Social Democrats who allowed the Nazis to come to power.

One significant turning point, towards the right, was the election of Paul von Hindenburg as President in 1925. Hindenburg wanted to restore the monarchy and power of the military, but he also feared chaos could result in a communist takeover. So he supported democracy in the interim. But it was complicated. Hindenburg was revered somewhat in the same way as Dwight Eisenhower would be in the U.S. after World War II. In the first round of voting every significant party ran candidates, so the democracy favoring parties were split three ways. Still "All told, the parties of the Weimar Coalition — SPD, Center, and DDP — had achieved 49.3 percent of the vote." Though they received more votes in the first round, the SPD (social democrats) agreed to support the Center Party candidate, Wilhelm Marx, in the second round, to insure victory. The right thought they would lose with their first round top vote getter, Karl Jarres. So they replace him with Hindenburg (strange rules by U.S. standards). The Catholic BVP endorsed Hindenburg, even though he was a Protestant and Marx was Catholic. The communists also insisted on running their own candidate, cutting into voting on the left. Hindenburg won with 48.3% of the vote.

In 1928 the Catholic Center Party moved decisively to the right, removing Marx as party chairman. [Ullrich does not mention it, but this was part of the Pope's anti-communist alignment with Mussolini and other right-wing authoritarians.] To help matters out the communists (KDP) declared the Social Democrats to be their main enemy, on orders from Joe Stalin.

The grand coalition (Democratic Socialists plus centrist parties) broke up on March 27, 1930, a victim of the Great Depression. That resulted in Hindenburg being able to appoint Heinrich Bruning, head of the Catholic Center Party, to the Chancellor position. Parliament became largely irrelevant, since Hindenburg granted the new right-wing cabinet special powers.

By 1930 Hitler and his Nazi Party had become quite popular. The Depression caused many Germans, from workers to industrial capitalists, to blame the older parties for their troubles. Hitler's message could be simple: Make Germany Great Again by eliminating democracy, revoking the Versailles Treaty, and restoring German military might.

The last sections of the book, covering roughly 1930 to 1933, make for fascinating reading. Hindenburg was elected President again in 1932. The Depression went on. Bruning was ousted for a more right-wing, former Center Party politician, Franz von Papen. Ullrich places much blame for the end of the republic on Papen, accusing him of the equivalent of a coup. Papen, in turn, was replaced by General Kurt von Schleicher. And finally the capitalists, generals, and right-wing politicians and Hindenburg made the mistake of appointing Adolf Hitler Chancellor on January 30, 1933. "Many Germans did not initially perceive January 30, 1933 as a dramatic turning point. Hardly anyone suspected what Hitler's appointment as chancellor really meant."

If you care about Democracy, I urge you to read this book and think about it carefully. In the second Trump administration we stand on the precipice. We should not repeat the mistakes of the past. There were many opportunities to stop Hitler. And Trump is an old man; there will be others, perhaps even more dangerous, in his wake. Every American should take a vow to support our Constitution, to amend it when necessary for the greater good, and to protect the earth from destruction.