Free Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman by Jeremy Adelman

staggering blow to democrats. It heightened the internal feuding among Socialists and crippled the resistance to martial law.
    In the spiral that swept Otto Albert into political life, the family also had to grapple with undeniable signs of rising right-wing intolerance. Still, there was an effort to buoy the faith of assimilated Jews who were committed to the republic’s pluralism. Hitler may have invented nothing in his reactionary ideology, but for the Hirschmanns, poring over their newspaper, listening to the news, or gossiping among friends, his performance at the polls was seen as ephemeral. Everything was happening so fast. Seen from the sanctuary of home, the Nazis were, if anything, risible. The rotund Hermann Goering, covered with medals, was called “roly-poly.” The shifty, promiscuous, club-footed Josef Goebbels was a favored butt of jokes. But hopes that this would all pass became even stronger after January 1933. 25
    Behind the scenes, the manipulation and posturing between factions on the Right brought to the fore persistent doubts about whether Germany should be a tolerant meritocratic nation as well as the reserve of hatred for the reforming republic. Socialists were paralyzed by the pace of events and the cynicism with which conservatives abandoned republican principles; to Communists this merely confirmed the fundamentally autocratic nature of capitalism, so now steps should be taken to prepare the proletariat for revolution. On January 30, Paul von Hindenburg, the president and World War I hero whose own commitment to Weimar constitutionalism was little more than a formality, brokered the creation ofa new cabinet of conservatives with Hitler to serve as chancellor; while the coalition members despised each other, they did agree to collude in the demolition of the republican state. Hitler rushed to his headquarters and told Goebbels with tears in his eyes, “Now we are on our way.” The accelerated collapse of the Weimar era only compounded the confusion for a young militant trying to keep his bearings. Upon hearing the news of Hitler’s ascent to the chancellorship, Otto Albert put on his uncle’s old green suit, grabbed his bicycle, and rode into the rainy Berlin night. Desperate to find out what the left-wing parties were doing to shore up the republic, he raced to the main SPD and Communist headquarters. Was there going to be a general strike? Would the Social Democrats abandon the policy of “tolerance?” Ursula caught up with him at the Communist headquarters, the Karl Liebknecht Haus, and remembered the look on his face as he leaned on his bicycle looking up at the brightly lit top floor of the building where the central committee was gathering: “He looked at the imposing building hoping for a sign of what to do next, and I was there, watching him, and now loved him more than any other person in the world. I understood that he suffered and that he had a more profound sense than me of the seriousness of the moment.” 26
    What the teenagers witnessed were shock and paralysis. The vaunted Red Berlin was a paper tiger. That night, the new era came upon them with massive torchlight parades down Berlin’s avenues, huge rallies of triumphant fascists, and the throb of Nazi chants. Troopers in their brown shirts and Schutzstaffel (SS) men in their black leather marched through the very heart of the Tiergarten itself to the Brandenburg Gate and stopped before the Reichstag, where Hitler greeted them from a balcony.
    When Hindenburg asked Hitler to form the new government, many thought it would last no more than a year. But History being what it is, Hitler’s maneuver broke the cycle, though only hindsight enables the observer to see that the National Socialists were a very different breed than the hapless reactionaries who had colluded to share power with them. Nazis dominated the screaming headlines, and their thugs patrolled the streets and broke up rallies, keeping Carl and Hedwig up all