1933 - Hardcover

Metcalfe, Philip

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 093296687X ISBN 13: 9780932966872

Publisher: Permanent Pr Pub Co, 1988

Synopsis

Looks at Hitler's first year in power through the stories of the American ambassador, Hitler's chief of the foreign press, a Jewish society reporter, and the first head of the Gestapo

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Using letters, diaries and memoirs, Metcalfe distills the personalities, viewpoints and day-to-day reactions of five alert and often directly involved witnesses to Hitler's consolidation of power. They are: U.S. ambassador to Germany, William Dodd and his high-spirited daughter Martha; Bella Fromm, a glamorous German society columnist who was Jewish and made no secret ot it; Ernst Hanfstaengl, Hitler's somewhat buffoonish foreign-press chief; and Rudolf Diels, the first head of the Gestapo. Events and trends related here include the Reichstag fire, the turning-loose of the Storm Troops, book-burnings and the outbreak of violent, organized anti-Semitism. The bloody Roehm purge of June 30, 1934, when Hitler liquidated the homosexual leadership of the SA, had a shock effect on each of the five witnesses on whom Metcalfe focuses. Their varied reactions form the climax to this exciting, historically important book by a first-time author. Particularly intriguing is the account of the Gestapo chief's "courting" of the American diplomatic circle (Martha Dodd found his "sinister beauty" fascinating), largely in hopes of protecting himself from his enemies. Photos. Paperback rights to Harper & Row.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Germany in the first year of Nazi rule is the setting for this evocation of a period of gathering terror. Unlike most of the recent spate of single-year books, this is not an account of public events. Rather it focuses on five people: U.S. Ambassador William Dodd; his daughter Martha; Jewish society reporter Bella Fromm; Putzie Hanfstaengl, chief of the foreign press; and Rudolf Diels, head of the Gestapo. Drawing on their own accounts, on newspaper reports, and on archival sources, Metcalfe conveys a vivid sense of a society going awry and of jarring incongruity between the normality of everyday life and the new stark violence. For general collections. Nancy C. Cridland, Indiana Univ. Libs., Bloomington
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Permanent Pr Pub Co
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 093296687X
• ISBN 13: 9780932966872
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 316