1923: The Crisis of German Democracy in the Year of Hitler's Putsch
By Mark William Jones
Despite presenting a decent amount of new information to me (which is a low bar due to my ignorance of the period), this work by historian Mark Jones isn't something I'd recommend. Because of its misleading characterization, a weak central argument, and near-obsession with violence, it felt more like a cable network newstainment program teasing you with the lead the whole time but making you wait 47 minutes for what turns out to be a less-than-spectacular story.
I don't want to talk shit about an author's work, particularly when I've never written or published a damn thing myself, and I definitely don't take pleasure in giving a thumbs down to a historian's effort at helping us better understand the world, but damn it, I also can't lie.
Let me start with what I thought was good about the book. Jones helps the reader understand the conditions of the German people after the World War and within the period of the Weimar Republic. It's not just the wild inflation of a shattered economy or the limitations put forth at the Treaty of Versailles, both of which I knew about. It was the occupation of the Ruhr region by the French and Belgians, and we're talking a brutal occupation that included beatings of the citizens on the street, rape of the women in their homes, and plain old murder. I never knew about any of this, and it's an important part of explaining why extremists groups gained support in the country during this time.
The economics are delved into quite a bit, with the French leadership portrayed as a sort of villain in the story, extracting as much of the natural resources from Germany as they can to pay war reparations and, frankly, for revenge for what happened to France in WWI. The development of numerous factions among the German people was also fascinating to learn about; it gave me an opportunity to see how different the regions actually are from each other (Bavaria, the Rhineland, Prussia, Berlin, etc). And I felt that the details provided on communist aggression and Jewish treatment were excellent.
Where it primarily fell apart for me can be categorized into two big reasons and two little ones. First and foremost, I felt led on that this was going to be a book focusing on terrible things Adolf Hitler and his Nazis were doing to people in order to grab power from a weak government and what that government was doing about it. It wasn't. From the first page on, Jones continued to hint at the badness of Hitler but the bulk of the actual violence was performed by the communists, French occupiers, and other political factions.
Once we finally get to the November 1923 putsch itself (and I had to look up that word), it was anticlimactic. Throwing some folks up against the wall and slapping them around was considered violence by the author, which it is, but, compared to the atrocities committed by other parties before this time, it's a joke. And when the actual “takeover” of the streets happened, it was the Nazis themselves with the biggest casualties. The putsch was a failure, Hitler goes to jail, and (before he writes his book) is considering suicide because of this complete defeat. So to me, it felt like false advertisement.
The other big reason I'd give a thumbs down was the author's argument not being sufficiently defended. “ .. when its norms are not supported and defended, with force if necessary, then democracy itself can disappear,” writes Jones. While a deeper discussion on this would good for the public, it wasn't clear what he meant by terms like “norms” or “force” in the book. Had the Weimar Republic followed its own available laws more strictly, Hitler would have been in jail a lot longer than one year and the Nazi movement would have fizzled out. Having the 1923 chaos fade away was due to a free press, not a restricted one. The mechanisms put in our of fear and shortsightedness to guard against the hated thing will eventually benefit the hated thing itself when it takes power… as it did in Germany in 1933. I believe Jones makes a great case against his own argument.
The little things that bothered me were writing style choices. One example is including long lists of stats to show the extent of financial problems for the Germans, when just a few examples would have sufficed. Another is how often he connected terms like “right wing” and “conservative” to the Nazis at the beginning of the book, and how little he used more correct terms like “fascist” and “extremists” or even “terrorists.” It smacks of someone trying to market his work to a left-wing audience, which is where most purchases of books come from, I believe, so maybe it was a business decision.
I did like how the author admitted his lifelong interest in political violence in the Acknowledgements section of the book. Some bad things happened around him as a child in Ireland in the late 80s and early 90s, so that may explain his fascination of factional aggression. I'm not certain, however, if it's a healthy lens to view the world from, even as a historian.