When Democracy Was Hijacked in Germany

n Saturday 28 January 1933, Carl Zuckmayer was getting ready for a party in Berlin. He would have preferred not to go but it wasn’t just any party. It was the Press Ball and his invitation marked him out as a rising literary star. So begins Uwe Wittstock’s February 1933. The worries and concerns of the characters we meet are personal, perhaps a little vain, and the looming political catastrophe a distant thought. But all that was about to change. That night, Zuckmayer would rub shoulders with writers, journalists, actors, old friends and famous faces; the guest list was a veritable who’s who of German cultural life. Erich Maria Remarque was there, riding high on the success of All Quiet on the Western Front. On the morning following the ball he would travel home to his Swiss villa on Lago Maggiore, which, in a matter of weeks, would become a destination for refugees. One sign that this year’s ball was unusual was the absence of politicians; in a normal year, they would be there, bending the ear of editors and journalists. In the previous summer, the government had been dissolved and, as the ball progressed, speculation would spread that Adolf Hitler was about to be appointed chancellor. Within a month he had established himself at the head of a dictatorship.