1932

Summary

Two Depression-battered nations confronted destiny in 1932, going to the polls in their own way to anoint new leaders, to rescue their people from starvation and hopelessness. America would elect a Congress and a president - ebullient aristocrat Franklin Roosevelt or tarnished "Wonder Boy" Herbert Hoover. Decadent, divided Weimar Germany faced two rounds of bloody Reichstag elections and two presidential contests - doddering reactionary Paul von Hindenburg against rising radical hate-monger Adolf Hitler. The outcome seemed foreordained - unstoppable forces advancing upon crumbled, disoriented societies. A merciless Great Depression brought greater - perhaps hopeful, perhaps deadly - transformation: FDR's New Deal and Hitler's Third Reich. But neither outcome was inevitable.

©2016 David Pietrusza (P)2019 Tantor