Benjamin Carter Hett is a history professor whose new book, THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY (Henry Holt, April 3rd, 2018) tackles the mystery of how Germany’s successful Democracy, known as the Weimar Republic, collapsed into one of the most vicious dictatorships in modern history. Germany erected a state-of-the-art democracy after World War I, which defended individual liberties from gay rights to women’s suffrage. But this democracy was undermined by bitter divisions in society, which were then exploited by conservative interest groups determined to sabotage the Republic. Drawing on original research from German archives and publications, author Hett shows how a small cadre of military and political conservatives thought they could use Hitler’s Nazi party as a Trojan horse to stoke control the public.

But in the wake of two weak elections, the conservatives found they had no choice but to elect Hitler as Chancellor, believing he could be deposed afterward. It never occurred to them that they might be outmaneuvered at their own game, letting Hitler seize power to expand upon his noxious nativism.