El Fracaso de la República de Weimar / Germany 1923: Hyperinflation, Hitler's Putsch, and Democracy in Crisis

Con la ca da de la Rep blica de Weimar comprendimos que las democracias son fr giles. En un abrir y cerrar de ojos pueden desaparecer las libertades que parecen firmemente conquistadas.

Pocos acontecimientos hist ricos ilustran la fragilidad de la democracia de una manera tan evidente como el que se relata en El fracaso de la Rep blica de Weimar, uno de los mayores dramas de la historia mundial, que el prestigioso historiador alem n Volker Ullrich explica como nunca antes se ha contado: de una forma v vida, emocionante y tan minuciosamente contextualizada que los paralelismos con la actualidad emergen de manera sorprendente.

Es cierto que el nacimiento de la rep blica se hab a producido en un contexto desfavorable: el Imperio alem n hab a sufrido una aplastante derrota y el pa s tuvo que aceptar las dur simas condiciones del Tratado de Versalles, a las que se sum una interminable sucesi n de crisis econ micas (solo interrumpidas por una fase de aparente estabilizaci n a mediados de los a os veinte). Pero, a pesar de todas las penurias por las que transit , la reci n esbozada primera democracia alemana no naci predestinada a un final estrepitoso: desde la fase fundacional de la rep blica hasta enero de 1933 hubo repetidas oportunidades de marcar un rumbo diferente. Por qu no se logr ? Entonces, igual que ahora, la realidad de un pa s depend a de las acciones concretas de los individuos. En cada p gina de este apasionante libro, Ullrich nos lanza un recordatorio urgente: est en nuestras manos que la democracia triunfe o fracase.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

From the New York Times best-selling historian comes a gripping account of the crisis of the Weimar Republic, when hyperinflation and political upheaval threatened to unravel a new experiment in democracy.

As the great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig confided in his autobiography, written in exile, "I have a pretty thorough knowledge of history, but never, to my recollection, has it produced such madness in such gigantic proportions." He was referring to the situation in Germany in 1923. It was a "year of lunacy," defined by hyperinflation, a political system on the verge of collapse, and separatist movements that threatened Germany's territorial integrity. Most significantly, Adolf Hitler launched his infamous Beer Hall Putsch in Munich―a failed coup that nonetheless drew international attention and demonstrated the Nazis' ruthless determination to seize power.

In Germany 1923, award-winning historian Volker Ullrich draws on letters, memoirs, newspaper articles, and other sources from the time to present a captivating new history of those explosive twelve months. The crisis began when the French invaded the Ruhr Valley in January to force Germany to pay the reparations it owed under the Treaty of Versailles, which had ended the Great War. For years, German leaders had embraced inflationary policies to finance the costs of defeat, and, as Ullrich demonstrates, the invasion utterly destroyed the value of the German mark. Before the war, the exchange rate was 4.2 marks to the dollar. By November 20, 1923, a dollar was worth an incomprehensible 4.2 trillion marks, and a loaf of bread cost 200 billion. Facing the abyss, many ordinary Germans called for a national messiah. Among the figures to vie for that role was Hitler, a thirty-four-year-old veteran who possessed a uniquely malevolent personal magnetism. Although the Nazi coup in November was put down and Hitler arrested, the putsch showed just how tenuous the first German democracy, the Weimar Republic, was at its core.

As Ullrich's panoramic narrative reveals, other Germans responded to the successive crises by launching a cultural revolution: 1923 witnessed the emergence of a multitude of new movements, from Dada to Bauhaus, and of such iconoclasts as Bertolt Brecht, George Grosz, and Franz Kafka. Yet most observers were amazed that the Weimar Republic was able to survive, and the more astute realized that the feral undercurrents unleashed could lead to much worse. Publishing a century after that fateful year, Germany 1923 is a riveting chronicle of one of the most challenging times any modern democracy has faced, one with haunting parallels to our own political moment