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'A most valuable contribution to our understanding of one of the key events of the 20th century. Professor Turner has provided by far the most detailed analysis yet of these events, and he enables us to follow every twist and turn of the plot with admirable clarity. Above all, he presents us with a shrewd and judicious assessment of the roles of the various characters involved and of their responsibility for the catastrophic outcome' - TLS

'Racy, but deeply serious...the story reads like a thriller, full of clandestine meetings and backstairs intrigue, in which a handful of individuals engaged in high politics, not impersonal forces, bring about the catastrophe' - The Times
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A detailed, insightful account of the events which culminated in Adolf Hitler's taking power in January 1933.


Combating the prevailing view that Nazi rule was inevitable - a result of what T.S. Eliot called "the great impersonal forces" of history - the book shows how luck, political intrigue and the personal weaknesses of Hitler's more powerful, traditional conservative opponents paved the way to his chancellorship.


The book provides a portrait of Hitler and the other main players in this political drama: President and ageing war hero Marshal Paul von Hindenburg; his miscalculating Chancellor, General Kurt von Schleicher (whom Hitler would later murder); and Hitler's devious co-conspirator, ex-chancellor Franz von Papen.


Richly researched, eye-opening, and utterly gripping, Henry Ashby Turner Jr's story re-establishes the importance of individual actors in the unfolding of these key historical events.