The Nazi Menace: Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, and the Road to War (2020)
Available Fall 2020
Berlin, November 1937. Adolf Hitler meets with his military commanders to impress upon them the urgent necessity for a war of aggression in eastern Europe. Some generals are unnerved by the Führer’s grandiose plan, but these dissenters are silenced one by one, setting in motion events that will culminate in the most calamitous war in history.
Benjamin Carter Hett takes us behind the scenes in Berlin, London, Moscow, and Washington, revealing the unsettled politics within each country in the wake of the German dictator’s growing provocations. He reveals the fitful path by which anti-Nazi forces inside and outside Germany came to understand Hitler’s true menace to European civilization and learned to oppose him, painting a sweeping portrait of governments under siege, as larger-than-life figures struggled to turn events to their advantage.
As in The Death of Democracy, his acclaimed history of the fall of the Weimar Republic, Hett draws on original sources and newly released documents to show how these long-ago conflicts have unexpected resonances in our own time. To read The Nazi Menace – especially now, as we are gripped by another emergency – is to see past and present in a new and unnerving light.
“A remarkable, authoritative journey into the events and decisions that led to the calamity of World War II. With deft writing, keen insight, and moments of narrative thrill, Benjamin Carter Hett delivers for readers a triumph of scholarship. I, for one, will not look the same at Churchill, Hitler, Roosevelt, and Stalin—nor soon shake the shiver of fear over how resonant the past is to our present day.”
“The Nazi Menace is thrilling—and chilling. In a work as panoramic as it is profound, Benjamin Carter Hett reveals how the Second World War emerged out of the crisis of democracy in the 1930s and shows that the forces at work are common to our age as well: vast disparities of wealth and need, xenophobia used to unite people, fake news, and the challenges of national security and technology. A stunning read about then, for now.”
“Benjamin Carter Hett has taken a well-known subject and breathed new life into it. The Nazi Menace is narrative history at its gripping best: a thrilling, fast-paced read full of vividly drawn characters that is elegantly written, thoughtful, and wise. He also does a superb job of bringing out the many parallels between the past and our political present. Essential reading.”
“Benjamin Carter Hett’s book combines meticulous research with clarity of prose. It provides fascinating new insight into the dramatic rise of Hitler and serves as a timely reminder that democracies are fragile creatures that, in the wrong hands, are open to abuse.”