Ambassador Frederic Sackett and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic, 1930–1933

The behind-the-scenes story of how Ambassador Sackett used all his influence to help prevent Hitler from coming into power.

Bernard V. Burke (Author)

9780521470056, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 January 1995

346 pages, 3 tables
23.7 x 16.1 x 2.5 cm, 0.666 kg

"...a first-rate study of Frederic Sackett, Herbert Hoover's ambassador to Germany. In the process, readers not only get insights into US policy concerning war debts, reparations, and disarmament, but also learn how the Western diplomatic corps--of which Sackett was an integral part--analyzed the decline of the Weimar Republic and Hitler's assumption of power. Few, if any, studies on US policy toward late Weimar Germany are so detailed. Thus, Burke has written a definitive work that fills a real gap." J.D. Doenecke, Choice

This book details a striking political relationship between American Ambassador Frederic Sackett and German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning and their attempts to save the Weimar Republic, achieve German nationalist goals, and thwart Adolf Hitler's drive to power. Sackett believed that financial policy was at the heart of German problems and, unless resolved, could be the basis for Hitler's success. Very early in his tenure in Berlin, Sackett saw Hitler and the Nazis as a serious danger to the Weimar Republic and to peace in Europe. The American thought that misrule by incompetent and inefficient Nazis would pave the way for a communist state. Although at first he saw the Nazis as harbingers of worse to come, in time he came to see Hitler as the real threat to democracy in Germany.

Introduction
1. A time of opportunity
2. American diplomacy, official and unofficial
3. The landslide election
4. Sackett takes the initiative
5. Sackett and the financial crisis
6. Perceptions of Nazism and Communism, with an afterthought on Fascism
7. One end, two paths: Hitler and Brüning in conflict
8. Efforts to sustain representative government in Germany
9. Sackett loses heart with Brüning's fall
10. The decline of Hitler and the Nazis
11. Through a glass darkly
Conclusion
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], History of the Americas [HBJK]