Why You Could Vote for Adolf Hitler Too

How hunger, fear, and bad politics turned a wounded nation into a mob—and why it can happen anywhere.

With the mark almost worthless, bartering made a comeback. Germans are seen here swapping bread, sausages and jam for tickets to the circus. Weimar Republic, 1923

When I was a kid, the story went like this: Germans somehow lost their minds and voted for a bad man named Adolf Hitler who hated Jews. Then the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Japan that some…