Hitler's First Hundred Days

January 13, 2020
University of Illinois history professor Fritzsche (An Iron Wind) chronicles the hundred days following Adolf Hitler’s appointment as German Chancellor in this detailed investigation into “the phenomenon of National Socialism.” Opening with a fly-on-the-wall account of the January 1933 meeting in which conservative leaders broke a parliamentary stalemate by elevating Hitler and agreeing to hold new elections, Fritzsche details how Nazis banned opposition newspapers, pitted Aryans against Jews (though he notes that anti-Semitism was already “prevalent”), suspended civil liberties, and “wiped out their adversaries in calculated acts of counterterrorism.” He draws on diaries, memoirs, and news reports to unpack the “apparent sudden shift in national mood” as ordinary Germans eager to experience social cohesion after two decades of war and fractious politics both consented to and were coerced into supporting National Socialism: a Hamburg resident discovers a new “sense of community” in the city’s grittiest districts, while a Dresden teacher can’t prevent her 14-year-old students from singing the Nazi anthem for fear of losing her job. Skillfully interweaving these anecdotal accounts with big-picture analysis, Fritzsche deepens readers’ understanding of how Hitler consolidated power. This is a worthy look at a moment too often hurried through in histories of the period.