Will 2024, like 1933, be the year of the destruction of democracy?

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. For his followers, it was a day of “national revolution” and rebirth. Germany, in his view, needed the restorative force of an authoritarian strongman after 14 years of the liberal-democratic Weimar “system.” That night, Hitler's brownshirts, armed with torches, marched through the center of Berlin to mark the beginning of a new era.

It was also a triumphant moment in the history of popular deception. From the early days of the Weimar Republic, its politics had been defined by disinformation campaigns, including the lie that Weimar democracy was the work of a conspiracy of Jews and socialists who had “stabbed Germany in the back” to guarantee their defeat in the First World War.

Today, virtually everyone agrees that Hitler's arrival was a turning point in world history, the beginning of a political process that would end in World War II and the Holocaust. But Hitler did not “take power,” as the Nazis later said. On the contrary, as his biographer Ian Kershaw has explained, he was “raised to power” by a small group of influential men.

One such man was Franz von Papen, who served as chancellor in 1932. Papen (infamously) thought that Hitler and the Nazi Party—by far the largest party after the 1932 Reichstag elections—could be used — to push a conservative agenda. Likewise, the president of Germany, former Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, wanted to use Hitler to reestablish the monarchy.

But the plans of these conservatives were soon devastated by Hitler's ruthless leadership, Nazi violence, and the rush of the German population to join the regime and become part of the promised national renaissance. Liberals and social democrats who opposed Hitler were either victims of violence or trapped in their own optimistic escapism. No matter how bad things got, they assured themselves, Hitler's regime was eventually going to crumble. Internal Nazi disputes would undoubtedly bring about the end of the new government.

Beyond liberals and socialists, a broader portion of German society assumed that Hindenburg, who had promised to be the president of all Germans, would keep Hitler in line, while others expected the army to take care of that. . They had all been misled by Hitler's ability to appear respectable in the final years of the Weimar Republic.

In the 100 days after Hitler's rise to chancellor, as historian Peter Fritzsche has shown, the Nazis' ruthless drive for power became starkly evident. By the end of the summer of 1933, German society was already aligned. There were no longer political parties, unions or independent cultural organizations. Only the Christian churches retained a certain degree of independence.

A year later, in the summer of 1934, Hitler ordered the assassination of his internal party rivals and, after Hindenburg's death on August 2, proclaimed himself Führer of Germany. His dictatorship was absolute. By then, the first concentration camps were already operating and the economy was heading towards war.

This period of history is still very relevant even today. Hundreds of millions of people will vote in a crucial election this year, and while the warning signs are right before our eyes, few analysts are willing to say it out loud: 2024 could be the new 1933.

Just imagine the world a year from now, when disinformation has toppled democratic majorities around the world. President Donald Trump ends US aid to Ukraine. NATO is no longer a limit to Vladimir Putin's dreams of building a new Russian empire throughout Eastern Europe. A critical mass of far-right parties in the European Parliament is blocking a unified European response. Poland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are left to their own devices. Now that the war in Gaza has become a regional conflict, Putin is taking the opportunity to launch another bombardment, accompanied by long-range missiles. And, in the midst of chaos, China decides to take over Taiwan.

The prospects for 2024 are so dismal that many refuse to contemplate them. Just as liberals in 1933 predicted that Hitler would quickly fail, today illusions are clouding our judgment. We are sleepwalking—to borrow Christopher Clark's appropriate metaphor for the beginning of World War I—toward a new international order.

In his masterful two-volume history of the interwar period—The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919-1933; The Lighthouses That Failed: An International History of Europe, untranslated—Zara Steiner refers to 1929-1933 as the “hinge years,” when idealism in international relations was replaced by the “Triumph of Darkness.” By late 1926, the liberals seemed to be winning: French Prime Minister Aristide Briand and his German counterpart, Gustav Stresemann, shared the Nobel Peace Prize for their work on Franco-German reconciliation, and Germany joined the League of the nations. Extreme nationalism seemed to be isolated in Mussolini's Italy.

In the face of today's global crises, there is no room for optimism. We are, potentially, in another pivotal year. If progressives act now, they can still prevail.

In an encouraging sign, hundreds of thousands of Germans recently took to the streets to support democracy and diversity, and to denounce the far right. But demonstrations in a single country are not enough. Others must join German progressives throughout Europe. A continental demonstration would send a powerful message. The sense of urgency must escalate, particularly to business leaders like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who, hedging his bets, has already begun reaching out to Trump.

Not long ago, European leaders came together and did what had to be done to save the euro, because they recognized that the failure of the single currency would mean the end of the European Union itself. Europeans must now demand the same urgency to confront this year's threats. The EU needs a plan for a world without NATO. He needs new tools to deal with member state leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who would rather kiss Putin's ring than defend democracy. It is simply unacceptable that Orbán continues to exercise veto power in EU decision-making.

In the United States, political mobilization is the great variable. Trump's opponents must put aside their differences and unite ranks behind President Joe Biden. We all know very well where disunity and naive optimism can lead us.

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