Weimar Germany Revisited

Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party tend to blot out everything else in 20th-century German history. But before Hitler made Berlin a capitol of tyranny and death, there was a decade and more of democracy in Germany. It was called the Weimar Republic, and its birth was strange.

When German generals saw they were losing World War I, they handed the country over to their democratic opposition. They were fall guys, but they dreamed of freedom and real democracy — and for a while, they had it. Then, there was Nazi Germany.

This hour, On Point: A new history of the remarkable, too-short flowering Weimar Republic.

Guests:

Eric Weitz, professor of history at the University of Minnesota and author of the new book "Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy."

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly.