First published 2023
Volker Ullrich examines Germany's catastrophic year of 1923, when the nation teetered on the edge of complete collapse. The crisis erupted when France invaded the Ruhr Valley to extract war reparations, triggering hyperinflation that rendered the German mark worthless. By November, a single dollar equaled 4.2 trillion marks and bread cost 200 billion marks. Political chaos followed economic disaster as separatist movements threatened to tear the country apart. In Munich, a thirty-four-year-old veteran named Adolf Hitler attempted his Beer Hall Putsch, a failed coup that revealed both his ruthless ambition and the fragility of the Weimar Republic. Drawing from letters, memoirs, and newspaper accounts, Ullrich reconstructs those twelve months when ordinary Germans searched desperately for a national savior while artists like Bertolt Brecht and movements like Bauhaus launched a cultural revolution. The book reveals how democracy survived its greatest test and warns of the dangerous forces that crisis can unleash.
Genres: history, 20th-century, non-fiction, academic
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-drama, political-thriller
Setting: Germany, Ruhr Valley, Munich
Period: 1923
378 pages · Kindle Edition · Liveright
Content warnings: violence