1932 : the rise of Hitler and FDR ; two tales of politics, betrayal, and unlikely destiny
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Two Depression-battered nations confronted destiny in 1932, going to the polls in their own way to anoint new leaders, to rescue their people from starvation and hopelessness. America would elect a Congress and a president ebullient aristocrat Franklin Roosevelt or tarnished Wonder Boy Herbert Hoover. Weimar Germany faced two rounds of bloody Reichstag elections and two presidential contests - doddering reactionary Paul von Hindenburg against rising radical hate-monger Adolf Hitler. The outcome: FDR s New Deal and Hitler s Third Reich. But neither outcome was inevitable. Readers enter the fray through David Pietrusza s page-turning account: Roosevelt's fellow Democrats may yet halt him at a deadlocked convention. Al Smith, 1928's Democratic nominee, harbors a grudge against his one-time protege. Press baron William Randolph Hearst lays his own plans to block Roosevelt's ascent to the White House. FDR's politically-inspired juggling of a New York City scandal threatens his juggernaut. In Germany, the Nazis surge at the polls but twice fall short of Reichstag majorities. Hitler, tasting power after a lifetime of failure and obscurity, falls to Hindenburg for the presidency also twice within the year. Yet guile and ambition may yet still prevail. 1932 is a breathtaking tale of scapegoats and panaceas, of class warfare and racial politics, of massive unemployment and hardship, of unprecedented public works/infrastructure programs, of stimulus programs and allegations of political cronyism, of bank failures and morgages foreclosed, of Washington bonus marches and Berlin street fights, of rapicly shifting social mores, and of international debt threatening to crash the entire global economy.