The Berlin Cauldron

Abstract

Stalin’s ascendancy in the Soviet Union, efforts by the Communist International (Comintern) to foment revolution in capitalist states, the growing appeal of Mussolini’s Italian fascism, and depressed economies all put Western democracy under siege. Then, on January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed as Germany’s chancellor. In quick succession, right-wing forces gained control in Greece and Finland, Austria’s democracy disintegrated, and the military assumed power in Bulgaria.¹ While a calamitous ideological clash was developing in Europe amidst a growing threat of war, Germany became the focal point of left-right passions—as well as a testing ground for democracy’s ability to withstand the onslaught of totalitarianism. Hitler pledged to save Europe from Bolshevism, but could he do it without simultaneously undercutting the Weimar Republic’s rule of law? The Communists surely had their own expansionist and totalitarian agenda, with the spotlight on Germany. The Comintern combatively declared: “Still more than hitherto the question of Germany is becoming the central question of the revolutionary movement of Europe and of the whole world. Now more than ever the tempo of the maturing revolutionary crisis in the whole of Europe will depend upon the development of events in Germany.”²