Darkness falling : the strange death of the Weimar Republic, 1930-33

Resource Information

The work Darkness falling : the strange death of the Weimar Republic, 1930-33 represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Randwick City Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Darkness falling : the strange death of the Weimar Republic, 1930-33

Title remainder

the strange death of the Weimar Republic, 1930-33

Statement of responsibility

Peter Walther ; translated from the German by Peter Lewis

Creator

• Walther, Peter, 1965-

Contributor

• Lewis, Peter

Author

• Walther, Peter, 1965-

Translator

• Lewis, Peter

Subject

• Germany -- History -- 1918-1933

Language

eng

Summary

A dramatic account of Germany's slide from parliamentary democracy to dictatorship, and the history of Weimar Berlin in the three years before the Nazi takeover. In March 1930, after the collapse of the coalition that had ruled Germany since 1928, President Hindenburg asked Heinrich Bruning, bespectacled and scholarly leader of the Catholic Centre Party, to form a government. Some three years later, in January 1933, Hindenburg appointed as chancellor the demagogic, virulently anti-Semitic leader of the National Socialist party. Within weeks, Adolf Hitler has begun the process of dismantling the flawed democracy of the Weimar Republic and replacing it with a one-party totalitarian state. Darkness Falling depicts in compelling fashion the serial crises and mounting violence of a febrile era. Peter Walther examines the slow death of Weimar through the prism of nine colourful protagonists, including leading German politicians of right, left and centre, the clairvoyant and occultist, Erik Jan Hanussen and the formidable American journalist Dorothy Thompson. He profiles these heterogeneous characters in intriguing detail, pulling together the threads of their lives to chart the demise of German parliamentary democracy and the rise of National Socialist tyranny. Along the way we gain fascinating insights into the machinations in the corridors of power to keep the 'Bohemian corporal' from the chancellorship, and the venality of the Nazi elite and its fellow travellers from the demi-monde of early 1930s Berlin. Walther evokes the louche nightlife of the German capital - 'a playground for charlatans and prophets, madmen and crooks' - memorably and atmospherically. A masterly fusion of meticulously researched historical writing and vividly propulsive storytelling, Darkness Falling is a distinctive and enthralling account of Germany's slide from democracy to dictatorship

Cataloging source

UKMGB

Dewey number

943.085

Illustrations

• illustrations
• portraits

Index

index present

Language note

Translated from the German

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography

Target audience

adult