Published by Headline.

Adolf Hitler is today a justly reviled figure. It wasn’t always so. Indeed, one of the abiding questions that remains partially unanswered about the Second World War is how one of the most educated societies on earth allowed themselves to get taken in by the fear-mongering and fomenting of a single man? With the current worldwide resurgence of right-wing populism and with many countries now openly flirting with authoritarianism, it is a question that has taken on an added relevancy.

Like Vladimir Putin, who seeks to rehabilitate the memory of Stalin, the 20^th century’s other great mass murderer, Hitler’s aim was, from the outset, to destroy democracy through the democratic process and then impose a one-party dictatorship. In other words, his plan was to pursue the legal path to power by getting himself elected to high office.

Just how he set about doing this, in those crucial few years before he assumed total control of Germany, is the subject matter of this deeply researched, illuminating book. Ryback describes, in fascinating detail, the political circumstances, and the schizophrenic state of Germany at the time. the personalities, the behind-the-scenes manoeuvrings and machinations, the double-dealing and endless intrigue, the back-stabbing, the violence, the messianic self-belief that Hitler possessed in abundance, the temper tantrums, the lies and the deceits.

Capitalising on the financial turmoil and political unrest that was dogging Germany and had left so many Germans disillusioned with the system, Hitler’s plan was to first get himself elected Reich Chancellor. In this, however, he was not to have it all his own way. When he suffered a massive drop off in electoral support, there was a brief while when it looked like Hitler was finished as a force. As one writer wryly observed: “Hitler is a man with a great future behind him’…”

Hitler faced another formidable obstacle in the form of Reich President Paul von Hindenberg. The two men came from different worlds. As the hero of the victory at Tannenberg, the tall, imposing aristocratic former field marshall was openly disdainful of the man he contemptuously referred to as the “Austrian corporal” and only too aware of the danger he posed. He feared that a “presidial cabinet led by you [Hitler] would inevitably lead to a party dictatorship with all the attendant consequences of a dangerous exacerbation of all the polarization among the German people”. This, in good conscience, he could not countenance; Hindenberg was determined to prevent it from happening under his watch.

Despite having publicly humiliated Hitler on several occasions, the ageing and increasingly frail Hindenberg had, in the end, little option but to appoint his despised nemesis Chancellor. The consequences of this action would soon be plain to see with Hitler plunging the world into the biggest and most brutal war in history.

Ryback’s account of Hitler’s ascension to power may be familiar but he has unearthed new information and has filled in some important gaps. The events he relates serve as a good cautionary tale about why we should be careful about who we elect to power; it also serves as a reminder as to why histories like this one must continue to be written and read.

published by Jonathan Ball

This is the second in a series featuring South African author Justin Fox’s protagonist, Lieutenant Jack Pembroke. Set against the backdrop of World War Two, it focuses on a now little-remembered theatre of operations during the international conflict – the U Boat attacks on the British convoys sailing around the southern tip of Africa.

As the commander of a small anti-submarine flotilla operating out of Cape Town, Pembroke is tasked with escorting an important convoy to Durban. Lining up against them is a deadly German wolf pack under the command of the experienced and wily Captain Wolfgang Brand, who had dropped off a South African-born spy on the West Coast. His mission had been to launch a mission of sabotage and rebellion bent on toppling Jan Smut’s government whilst, at the same time, relaying critical information to aid the German cause.

Fox has obviously taken enormous, almost obsessive, care to get the background to his story just right. Displaying a remarkable factual authenticity, The Wolf Hunt, vividly portrays what life must have been like not only for the sailors on their vulnerable ships, pushed to exhaustion and often operating in extreme weather conditions, but also for the Germans confined within the cramped, claustrophobic interior of a U Boat who are equally aware that their lives are at risk. While it recalls the war-time thrillers of Nicholas Montserrat and Alistair Maclean, the storyline does not, in any way, feel borrowed. Powerful in its physical descriptions and evocation of another era, one finishes the book looking forward to the next one in the series.