1933

• Contents: Introduction; Peter and Irma Petroff: The Secret of Hitler’s Victory, I: The World Stands Before a Riddle, II: The Weimar Republic and its Pillars, III: The Internal Decay of the German Labour Movement, IV: The Crisis, V: Under the Brown Yoke. Hippolyte Etchebehere: The Tragedy of the German Proletariat. Daniel Guérin: Schleicher, Hitler or Revolution? Paul Strehl: Politicians Put Skids Under Strike of Berlin Transport Workers.A Group of Revolutionary Syndicalists, To Organised Workers. Index.

Peter and Irma Petroff’s book is unlike anything else available in English. For, rather than portraying Hitler’s success as the product of some evil genius on his part, they cast an unforgiving light on Hitler’s socialist opponents. They accurately convey the enormous opportunities the German left enjoyed prior to 1933, and the mass support for left-wing ideas. Brimming with vivid and specific details, their book describes a kind of moral sickness that infected the German left, a collapse of hopefulness, a cynicism which left its victims incapable of resistance. Read this book and learn from it, and resist the same weakness wherever you encounter it. — David Renton, author of The New Authoritarians: Convergence on the Right