
Takeover
Hitler's Final Rise to Power
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Narrated by:
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Richard Attlee
About this listen
From the internationally acclaimed author of Hitler’s Private Library, a dramatic recounting of the six critical months before Adolf Hitler seized power, when the Nazi leader teetered between triumph and ruin
In the summer of 1932, the Weimar Republic was on the verge of collapse. One in three Germans was unemployed. Violence was rampant. Hitler’s National Socialists surged at the polls. Paul von Hindenburg, an aging war hero and avowed monarchist, was a reluctant president bound by oath to uphold the constitution. The November elections offered Hitler the prospect of a Reichstag majority and the path to political power. But instead, the Nazis lost two million votes. As membership hemorrhaged and financial backers withdrew, the Nazi Party threatened to fracture. Hitler talked of suicide. The New York Times declared he was finished. Yet somehow, in a few brief weeks, he was chancellor of Germany.
In fascinating detail and with previously un-accessed archival materials, Timothy W. Ryback tells the remarkable story of Hitler’s dismantling of democracy through democratic process. He provides fresh perspective and insights into Hitler’s personal and professional lives in these months, in all their complexity and uncertainty—backroom deals, unlikely alliances, stunning betrayals, an ill-timed tax audit, and a fateful weekend that changed our world forever. Above all, Ryback details why a wearied Hindenburg, who disdained the “Bohemian corporal,” ultimately decided to appoint Hitler chancellor in January 1933. Within weeks, Germany was no longer a democracy.
©2024 Timothy W. Ryback (P)2024 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“How does a flawed republic become something entirely different? We know how the Nazi regime ended, but think too little about how it began. This admirable account shows us how fragile and avoidable were those beginnings, and helps us to reflect upon our own predicaments." –Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny
"An expert account of the dizzying months when Hitler solidified his power in Germany... A masterfully narrated story of how a democracy committed suicide, with lessons for today." –Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"Timothy W. Ryback’s choice to make his new book, Takeover... an aggressively specific chronicle of a single year, 1932, seems a wise, even an inspired one. Ryback details, week by week, day by day, and sometimes hour by hour, how a country with a functional, if flawed, democratic machinery handed absolute power over to someone who could never claim a majority in an actual election... Democracy doesn’t die in darkness. It dies in bright midafternoon light... Precise circumstances [in history] never repeat, yet shapes and patterns so often recur." –Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker
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-
Story
Established in 1918–19, in the wake of Germany’s catastrophic defeat in the First World War and the revolution that followed swiftly on its heels, the Weimar Republic ushered in widespread social reform, a radical cultural flowering and the most democratic conditions the German people had ever known. The Weimar Years is a vivid narrative of a dramatic period in German history. Year by year, from 1918 to 1933, Frank McDonough covers the major events in both domestic and foreign policy and the personalities who shaped them, together with developments in music, art, theatre and literature.
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I learned a ton
- By Phyllis on 12-30-24
By: Frank McDonough
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The Coming of the Third Reich
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 21 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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There is no story in 20th-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time.
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Compelling and depressing
- By Tad Davis on 06-30-10
By: Richard J. Evans
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The Unfathomable Ascent
- How Hitler Came to Power
- By: Peter Ross Range
- Narrated by: Paul Hodgson
- Length: 13 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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On the night of January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler leaned out of a spotlit window of the Reich chancellery in Berlin, bursting with joy. The moment seemed unbelievable, even to Hitler. After an improbable political journey that came close to faltering on many occasions, his march to power had finally succeeded. While the path of Hitler's rise has been told in books covering larger portions of his life, no previous work has focused solely on his eight-year climb to rule: 1925-1933.
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The best account of Hitler’s rise to power.
- By Deal W. Hudson on 08-26-20
By: Peter Ross Range
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The Last Palace
- Europe's Turbulent Century in Five Lives and One Legendary House
- By: Norman Eisen
- Narrated by: Jeff Goldblum
- Length: 15 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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When Norman Eisen moved into the US ambassador’s residence in Prague, returning to the land his mother had fled after the Holocaust, he was startled to discover swastikas hidden beneath the furniture in his new home. These symbols of Nazi Germany were remnants of the residence’s forgotten history, and evidence that we never live far from the past. From that discovery unspooled the twisting, captivating tale of four of the remarkable people who had called this palace home. Their story is Europe’s....
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Great book despite goldblum’s narration
- By Fernando Ferrante on 01-19-19
By: Norman Eisen
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Hitler's People
- The Faces of the Third Reich
- By: Richard J. Evans
- Narrated by: Leighton Pugh
- Length: 21 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard Evans, author of the acclaimed The Third Reich Trilogy and over two dozen other volumes on modern Europe, is our preeminent scholar of Nazi Germany. Having spent half a century searching for the truths behind one of the most horrifying episodes in human history, in Hitler’s People, he brings us back to the original site of the Nazi movement: namely, the lives of its most important members. Working in concentric circles out from Hitler and his closest allies, Evans forms a typological framework of Germany society under Nazi rule from the top down.
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Outstanding
- By Peter Ryers on 09-13-24
By: Richard J. Evans
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Hitler
- Ascent 1889-1939
- By: Volker Ullrich
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 34 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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For all the literature about Adolf Hitler, there have been just four seminal biographies; this is the fifth, a landmark work that sheds important new light on Hitler himself. Drawing on previously unseen papers and a wealth of recent scholarly research, Volker Ullrich reveals the man behind the public persona, from Hitler's childhood, to his failures as a young man in Vienna, to his experiences during the First World War, to his rise as a far-right party leader.
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Worthwhile if you haven't read a Hitler biography
- By Joshua on 11-03-16
By: Volker Ullrich
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The Hitler Years: Triumph, 1933-1939
- By: Frank McDonough
- Narrated by: Paul McGann
- Length: 16 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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In this first volume of a new chronicle, Frank McDonough charts the rise and fall of the Third Reich under Hitler's hand, ending on Germany's comprehensive military defeat of Poland in 1939.
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Exceptionally informative and detailed telling of Hitler’s rise in 1933-1939
- By M. Price on 06-22-24
By: Frank McDonough
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Hitler
- By: Joachim C. Fest, Richard Winstton - translator, Clara Winstton - translator
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 41 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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This masterful biography by one of Germany’s best known journalists was the leading nonfiction best seller in Germany. Fest shows Hitler as the receptacle of the dreads and resentments of a shaken social order, gifted with an uncanny instinct for all that was hollow behind the appearance of power, at home and abroad. Though a warped human being, he was neither clown nor puppet, as many liked to think; Hitler appears here as an enormously astute politician, impressing and hypnotizing Germans and foreigners alike with the scope of his projects and the theatricality of their presentation. Fest uncovers in Hitler a constantly destructive personality....
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Should be part of high school education
- By Rex Riethmeier on 12-25-18
By: Joachim C. Fest, and others
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Eight Days in May
- The Final Collapse of the Third Reich
- By: Volker Ullrich, Jefferson Chase - translator
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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On April 30, 1945, in a bunker deep beneath the Old Reich Chancellery, Adolf Hitler and his newly wedded wife, Eva Braun, killed themselves. But Nazi Germany lived on, however briefly. The subsequent eight days were among the most turbulent in history, witnessing not only the final battles of World War II and the collapse of the Wehrmacht, but the near-total disintegration of the once-mighty Third Reich.
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Interesting history incompetently read
- By Oralabor Bondurant on 01-26-22
By: Volker Ullrich, and others
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The "Hitler Myth"
- Image and Reality in the Third Reich
- By: Ian Kershaw
- Narrated by: George Cunningham
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Few, if any, 20th-century political leaders have enjoyed greater popularity among their own people than Hitler did in the decade or so following his rise to power in 1933. The personality of Hitler himself, however, can scarcely explain this immense popularity or his political effectiveness in the 1930s and '40s. His hold over the German people lay rather in the hopes and perceptions of the millions who adored him. Based largely on the reports of government officials, party agencies, and political opponents, Kershaw's study charts the creation, growth, and decline of the Hitler myth.
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Not a study of Hitler Charismatic Authority
- By Raminak on 03-05-23
By: Ian Kershaw
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The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler
- By: William L. Shirer
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 3 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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American journalist and author William L. Shirer was a war correspondent for six years in Nazi Germany, having a front-row seat to Hitler’s rise in influence and power. His most definitive work on the subject, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, is a riveting account of life in the tyrannical state, a country transformed by war and dictatorship. The author was originally commissioned to write The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler for a young adult audience. This account loses none of the immediacy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich....
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Shirer and Gardner--perfect together!
- By CD318 on 07-08-20
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This Is Berlin
- Radio Broadcasts from Nazi Germany
- By: William Shirer
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 21 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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This collection of William L. Shirer’s radio broadcasts tells the vivid story of WWII and brings the suspense of the times to life for today’s audience. As the first journalist hired by CBS to cover the war in Europe, Shirer compiled two and a half years’ worth of wartime broadcasts including Hitler’s invasion of Austria, the armistice between France and Nazi forces in June of 1940, daily roundups of news from Paris, Vienna, Berlin, London and Rome, documenting the conditions of these countries under invasion.
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Another banger from Willy and Grover
- By Garrett Webster on 04-08-24
By: William Shirer
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HITLER: 1936-1945 Nemesis
- By: Ian Kershaw
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 38 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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As Nemesis opens, Adolf Hitler has achieved absolute power within Germany and triumphed in his first challenge to the European powers. Idolized by large segments of the population and firmly supported by the Nazi regime, Hitler is poised to subjugate Europe. Nine years later, his vaunted war machine destroyed, Allied forces sweeping across Germany, Hitler will end his life with a pistol shot to his head.
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Well worn ground
- By Mike From Mesa on 04-06-14
By: Ian Kershaw
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Hitler's American Friends
- The Third Reich's Supporters in the United States
- By: Bradley W. Hart
- Narrated by: Chris Ciulla
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Hitler's American Friends, by Bradley W. Hart, is an audiobook examining the strange terrain of Nazi sympathizers, nonintervention campaigners, and other voices in America who advocated on behalf of Nazi Germany in the years before World War II. Americans who remember World War II reminisce about how it brought the country together. The less-popular truth behind this warm nostalgia: Until the attack on Pearl Harbor, America was deeply, dangerously divided.
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Excellent Information
- By Laura on 05-09-19
By: Bradley W. Hart
What listeners say about Takeover
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Neil Gussman
- 04-28-24
Not Inevitable
Hitler could have been stopped. Ryback makes it very clear that Hitler could have been kept from power.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-29-25
Too close to the bone
Thoroughly researched and meticulously documented but flows readily through complicated events bearing harrowing similarities to the current situation in the USA.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anastasia
- 02-21-25
Rise Repeat?!?!
I can't believe we are repeating history almost verbatim here in USA. I knew bits and pieces of the history but after reading this I am truly terrified for the future of our country. For the one reviewer that started that this was a boring story... Dear Sir or Madam this was history and this is history now this isn't some work of fiction! For God sakes something needs to be done before it truly is too late. Wake Up!
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- Derek Kaufman
- 04-19-24
Scary
This book was very intriguing and scary because of the parallels to what is going on now in the U.S., politically. When we think there’s no chance of someone like Hitler coming to power again, look around and you’ll see a current politician using these same strategies and “tricks” to gain power. It happened once and it could happen again. I took this book as a warning to what can happen when you sit idly by, not vote, or believe the propaganda that non-centrists push.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Eric Rodriguez
- 04-05-24
Scary Gistory
It feels to uncomfortably familiar to the current political situation in the United States and some European countries.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Jeffrey Massung
- 03-10-25
Very insightful
This was a book that I could not have read myself - with all the dates and German names - and kept everything straight. The performance was fantastic.
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- Gina Samci
- 04-16-24
The Perfect Storm
A lot of the times people think dictators sneak in our break down doors but truly often we open the front door and usher them in…
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3 people found this helpful
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- Doug Easterling
- 04-19-24
how even those from whom so little could be expected can mold history
If the reader isn't a scholar of modern German history, this book probably strays too far into the weeds of historical detail.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Ian
- 04-15-24
America repeats history.
This account may be a teaching moment for the present era in the USA political landscape!
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4 people found this helpful
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- Mitch
- 10-10-24
"Takeover" WAS BORING!!!
"Takeover" was very difficult to listen to. It got more boring every hour. It was simply a poorly narrated audiobook with an even worse story. I never finished this audiobook. I just put it aside.
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1 person found this helpful