Dispatches from the Weimar Republic: Versailles and German Fascism

Rating:
Summary: a must
Review: Every body who want to understand Germany before the Hitler - period should read this book. When finished reading you can say: Hitler is a product of 'Germany' and not an individual politician.

Rating:
Summary: Good chronicle from a committed leftist perspective
Review: Excellent recounting of the failed attempts to bring democracy to Germany for the first time and makes clear that both the left (mainly Communists and far left Socialists) and the right (mainly National Socialists and similar fascist groups) were determined to ensure that democracy was not successful there. They needed the Republic to fail for them to be successful and eventually they together along with the hated Treaty of Versailles brought down the Weimar Republic with horrible consequences for everyone. The dispatches are wonderful because of the contemporaneous nature of the reporting but in my opinion are quite flawed due to the author's incredible faith in the soviets or workers councils as well as other far left entities, and his hostility towards anything that did not further the leftist socialist agenda. Reading the book after the intervening decades makes that faith almost laughable if it wasn't so tragic. Incidentally I visited Weimar two years ago and it is a shame that such a beautiful cultured city should be linked with such a sad chapter of German history. Better to remember the Weimar of Goethe, Schiller, and Liszt than that of Luxemburg, Stinnes, and Hindenburg.