Avant la catastrophe

Avant la Catastrophe tells the story of the advent of the National Socialist Party as the leading political force in Germany during the period 1930-1933, through the steps and words of French press correspondents. Faced with this movement that was inexorably imposing itself, while the Nazis had, for a time, renounced the coup de force and were playing the good pupils of the Weimar Republic with application, what did these foreign journalists perceive of the upheaval that was taking place? What did they write about the weaknesses of German democracy, the consequences of the crash, the struggles between Nazis, Communists and Social Democrats? What did they see of the spread of misery and violence, of the madness and faith of the partisans of each side? Was the foreign press, in turn, fascinated by the German Führer? What do these privileged witnesses tell us about these years when the brown plague managed to win Germany through the ballot box?