Three Crises and a War
Through three major crises – the Reichstag fire of February, 1933; the "Night
of the Long Knives" of June, 1934; and the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis of early
1938 – Adolf Hitler consolidated his dictatorial rule over Germany. When Hitler
first came to power, he was surrounded by establishment conservatives
who saw themselves as "the adults in the room" and assumed they could
control the new chancellor. The most important effect of these three crises
was to liberate Hitler from the control of the "adults," freeing him to pursue
an ever more radical and dangerous foreign policy. This talk will explain the
three crises and show how they made possible the Second World War and the
Holocaust – with some disturbing parallels to our times.
– Benjamin Hett, Ph.D.
Benjamin Carter Hett, Ph.D., is a Professor of History at Hunter College and
the CUNY Graduate Center. He is the author of The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s Rise
to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic, winner of the 2019 Vine Award for
History and named one of the year’s best books by The Times of London and the Daily
Telegraph. His other books include Burning the Reichstag: An Investigation into the
Third Reich’s Enduring Mystery, and Crossing Hitler: The Man Who Put the Nazis on the
Witness Stand, which was filmed by the BBC.
