January 22, 2025 - Classroom

Dr. Brenner steps inside, lets the door ease shut behind him, and crosses to the open end of the U—the modified horseshoe of tables where sixteen students face each other and him. He sets his leather briefcase on the desk, jacket still buttoned because Room 204 never settles on a temperature, and picks up a dry-erase marker without sitting.

Dr. Brenner clears his throat, lets the room settle, and offers a quick half smile. "Good morning. I'm Dr. David Brenner, and this is HISTORY 412, Comparative History: Rise of Modern Authoritarianism."

He nods toward the whiteboard. "Before we wrestle with Hitler, I want everyone to know who's in the room. Let's take a moment for introductions—name, year, major, and what pulled you into a seminar on authoritarianism."

One by one the circle fills with voices:

Nisha Desai, junior, political science and critical theory minor, multiple pins on her backpack (Protect Trans Kids, BLM, Climate Justice), says she's "here because history is repeating."

Marcus Washington, grad student working two jobs, tired eyes behind practical glasses, writing his master's thesis on democratic backsliding—"hoping to stress-test my argument."

Jake Morrison, junior business major and ROTC cadet, clean-cut and broad-shouldered, "interested in what makes strong leaders—and how to bring opportunity back to places like my hometown."

Richard Waters, junior engineering major, says he's interested in "how ordinary people get swept up in movements they later regret."

Chelsea Allen, junior education major, twists her backpack strap as she admits she almost didn't enroll because "the current stuff feels scary," but she wants to understand the history first.

The remaining students—Sarah Kimbrell (sharp legal questions), Emily Johnson (quiet precision), Amir Hassan near the windows (comparative politics focus), Michael Lee who shifts uncomfortably and admits he's here because it fit his schedule—complete the circle with voices steady or hesitant, reasons varied. By the time the last introduction ends, Dr. Brenner has sixteen names and sixteen reasons for being here.

Dr. Brenner thanks them, mentions he's in Room 303 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from two to four. "My email's on there if you need to reach me outside office hours. Drop-ins are welcome anytime the door's open."

He writes "SEMINAR" on the board in capital letters and underlines it twice.

"This is a seminar, not a lecture hall. That means everyone participates. Every week. I'm not looking for perfect answers—I'm looking for engaged thinking. Ask questions, challenge readings, argue with each other respectfully." He pauses, scanning the U. "Ten percent of your grade is participation and discussion. That's not attendance credit. That's showing up intellectually—demonstrating you've done the readings, engaging with diverse perspectives, and contributing to our collective understanding."

He taps the marker against the board. "Another ten percent is Portal discussions—our online class channel where you'll engage with material and each other between meetings. Twenty-five percent is the Six Week exam covering the Nazi Germany baseline. Twenty percent is your midterm comparative analysis due Week Nine, where you'll compare Nazi mechanisms to a modern case. Twenty-five percent is your final research paper incorporating developments through January 2025. And ten percent for a current events presentation analyzing recent developments in one of our case countries."

Jake raises his hand. "So the participation grade—is that just speaking up, or is there more to it?"

"Both quality and consistency," Dr. Brenner answers. "I'm not counting who talks most. I'm looking for whether you're wrestling with the material. Sometimes that's a sharp question. Sometimes it's connecting this week's reading to last week's. Sometimes it's respectfully pushing back on a classmate's interpretation." He sets the marker down. "What I don't want is silence. This subject matter is too important for passive consumption."

Nisha nods, pen already hovering over her notebook. Marcus adjusts his laptop screen slightly. Michael Lee shifts in his seat, looking less comfortable.

Dr. Brenner sketches the semester arc with the marker: "Germany anchors us—you'll see why in a minute. Then we map democratic backsliding in Turkey, Hungary, and Brazil, and close with Cuba as a contrasting authoritarian pathway. Think of it as moving from the mechanics of the Third Reich to the twenty-first century, and asking what carries over and what mutates."

He writes "WEEKS 1-5" and underlines it. "First five weeks are our baseline: Nazi Germany from Weimar instability through the Beer Hall Putsch, the seizure of power in 1933, consolidation through 1934, and the scapegoating and economic populism that sustained the regime through 1939. Week Six is review and exam."

"Weeks Seven through Twelve," he continues, writing the numbers, "we shift to Turkey—Erdoğan's transformation from EU-oriented reformer to authoritarian, the failed 2016 coup and its aftermath. Then Hungary's 'illiberal democracy' under Orbán, judicial capture through constitutional supermajorities, and what happens when democracy erodes inside the EU. Brazil comes next—Bolsonaro's assault on institutions and why Brazilian democracy survived when others didn't."

He circles "WEEK 13" separately. "Cuba's our comparative outlier. Communist single-party authoritarianism, not fascism. Different pathway, similar outcomes in terms of repression and control."

Sarah raises her hand. "Why start with Germany instead of jumping straight to the modern cases?"

"Because Hitler's methods became the authoritarian playbook," Dr. Brenner says. "Emergency powers, judicial capture, media control, opposition suppression, scapegoating minorities—every modern case echoes those mechanisms. We need the baseline to recognize the patterns. Otherwise we're just describing events without understanding the structure beneath them."

The date goes on the board, then the words "Core Question: Who was Adolf Hitler and how did he rise?" The U-shape makes eye contact unavoidable; he lingers on each student until the whispers fade.

They don't know. How much before it's just noise? Before I'm the professor who drowned them in dates?

"August 1914. Franz Ferdinand's assassination triggers a cascade of alliance obligations, and Europe goes to war. Germany fights two fronts—France and Britain in the west, Russia in the east—until the United States enters in 1917 and the math shifts. The Spring 1918 offensive fails, the Western Front collapses, and by autumn the High Command knows it's over."

Someone shifts. Marcus adjusts his laptop angle.

"November 9, 1918: Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates. The Weimar Republic is declared by politicians who inherit a defeat they didn't cause. By June 1919, German delegates sign the Treaty of Versailles—reparations, territory losses, and Article 231, the 'war guilt clause' that assigns sole responsibility for the war to Germany and its allies. It's not just a legal document. It becomes a national wound, a humiliation carved into every banknote and newspaper."

The radiator clanks. Grandmother Miriam would have been six years old when the Kaiser abdicated. She never talked about the inflation years. Only what came after.

"Between 1919 and 1923, Germany records 354 political assassinations—326 committed by right-wing extremists, twenty-eight by the left. Courts hand right-wing killers average sentences of four months. Left-wing defendants draw fifteen years on average. The law itself signals which violence the state will tolerate."

"November 1923 brings hyperinflation: one U.S. dollar equals 4.2 trillion paper marks. Dawes Plan loans stabilize the currency, but the Wall Street Crash in October 1929 sends unemployment soaring. Nazi vote share rises from 2.6 percent in 1928 to 37.3 percent in July 1932—still short of a majority—yet President Hindenburg appoints Hitler chancellor on January 30, 1933."

The marker circles the question on the board. "Week One asks us, very plainly, 'Who was Hitler and how did he rise?' That means tracking the institutional weaknesses already present before he entered the Reich Chancellery."

The marker squeaks. "Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution empowers the president to suspend civil liberties and rule by decree during crises. By the early 1930s, Presidents Müller and then Brüning had normalized those decrees; parliament became almost ornamental."

Jake leans forward, elbows on the table. Dad's last layoff came because some regulation shut down the production line. Nobody voted for that. And when we prayed about it at church, Pastor Mike said sometimes God allows suffering to test our faith—but maybe God also expects us to act. "Professor, if presidents were already ruling by decree and courts protected right-wing violence, doesn't that make Hitler a symptom instead of the disease? Maybe the republic collapses no matter who walks through that door."

Dr. Brenner feels the urge to polish his glasses and resists. Grandmother Miriam would recognize that argument—the republic was already dying. But she'd also say: symptoms with agency are still murderers. "It's true the institutions were wobbling. But symptoms can still have agency. The same flawed system also kept Hitler out of power when the Nazis were polling at 18 percent. The damage accelerated because he and his allies recognized how to weaponize those rules faster than their opponents did."

A triangle appears on the board—"Parliament," "President," and "People." "Weimar relied on coalition governments, proportional representation, and a president with emergency powers. Once the economy collapsed and the Reichstag fragmented, that triangle twisted inward."

Nisha leans over her notebook, voice tight. Ma and Baba waited six years for their green cards. Six years of lawyers and applications and fear. And now— "When judges let right-wing killers walk and presidents bypass parliament, they set up an ecosystem where fascists flourish. It's not inevitable, but the pipeline is obvious: impunity becomes precedent, then precedent becomes policy."

Beneath the triangle: "Impunity." "It does create on-ramps," Dr. Brenner agrees. "The question we'll keep asking is how much of that on-ramp is cultural, how much is legal, and how much is driven by specific actors."

A horizontal timeline stretches from 1918 to 1933. "Think about sequence. Violent street politics in the early republic are met with leniency on the right. Economic catastrophe hits in 1929. Presidents rule by decree. Finally, conservative elites invite Hitler into a coalition, believing they can control him."

Amir Hassan, near the windows, raises a hand. "When you say 'believing they can control him'—was that based on any evidence, or just wishful thinking?"

"Both," Dr. Brenner says. "Hitler's coalition partners held key cabinet positions. They assumed institutional inertia would constrain him. They were wrong."

The radiator hisses. Fluorescent light streams through the tall windows.

Marcus raises two fingers. "Can we pin down what actually converted voters? Was it fear of communism, the promise of jobs, or the spectacle? We throw around percentages, but what's the mechanism?"

"We don't have survey data, so we triangulate," Dr. Brenner says. "Goebbels's propaganda emphasized order and national revival; the Brownshirts cleared opponents from the streets; unemployment soared past six million. Voters encountered a mixture of message and menace."

"Brownshirts—Sturmabteilung—started as the Nazi Party's rough security crew in 1921, recognized by their brown uniforms. By the early 1930s they numbered in the hundreds of thousands, riding freight trains to crash rival meetings, break strikes, and flood ballots with a show of force. The point was to make street violence feel like a mass movement long before Hitler entered the Chancellery."

Emily raises her hand. "So the violence was strategic, not just chaos?"

"Both," Dr. Brenner says. "Strategic in that it intimidated opponents and projected strength. Chaotic in that individual Brownshirts acted with minimal oversight. The combination was effective."

The timeline caps at "Jan 30, 1933," then he underlines "March 23, 1933." "Fifty-four days after his appointment, Hitler secures the Enabling Act: legislation enabling his cabinet to pass laws without the Reichstag or presidential consent. Legal authority, not just charisma, locked in the transformation."

How many lectures did Grandmother Miriam sit through in Łódź before the schools closed to Jews? Did her teachers see it coming?

Sarah, halfway down the right side, lifts her hand. "Why did President Hindenburg and Franz von Papen think they could control him? Was it arrogance, desperation, or an assumption that the constitution still had guardrails?"

"A mix of all three," Dr. Brenner answers. "They believed Hitler would need their conservative base and that the army would remain loyal to them. They underestimated how quickly control would shift once the Enabling Act gutted parliamentary oversight."

"Beer Hall Putsch—November 8-9, 1923." The date goes on the board. "Sixteen Nazis and four Bavarian police officers die in Munich. Hitler is arrested within forty-eight hours, tried for high treason, sentenced to five years Festungshaft—honorable confinement, a privilege reserved for political prisoners—and released after roughly eight months. That trial hands him national publicity and teaches him the courtroom can be a stage."

Emily, near the front right, chimes in quietly. "So the prison sentence is what convinced him to pursue legality?"

"Landsberg Prison—a fortress prison in Bavaria where he was treated more like a guest than a prisoner—gave him time to dictate Mein Kampf and reframe the coup as a lesson," Dr. Brenner says. "He emerges with a martyr narrative and a plan to win power through elections and coalition deals rather than another failed putsch."

Palms dusty from the whiteboard. "Let's define terms. Today's syllabus vocabulary includes 'fascism' and 'authoritarianism.' Umberto Eco—Italian novelist and philosopher who survived Mussolini's Italy—talks about fascism as a set of mobilizing passions: national rebirth, cult of tradition, obsession with plots. His 1995 essay Ur-Fascism identifies fourteen characteristics that cut across different fascist movements. Robert Paxton, Columbia historian and author of The Anatomy of Fascism, charts staged progression: intellectual exploration, rooting, power, exercise, radicalization or entropy. He spent decades studying Vichy France and Nazi Germany, and his framework helps us track how movements evolve from fringe ideas to state control."

Michael Lee drums two fingers on the tabletop. Dad's deli survived three recessions until the city rezoned for luxury condos. Every regulation came with the word "progress" attached. He taught me: when elites talk theory, working people lose jobs. "Every time we talk about fascism it turns into theorizing. People in 1932 just wanted jobs and safety. They weren't obsessed with manifestos."

"Material needs mattered enormously," Dr. Brenner says evenly. "But ideology told voters who to blame and what the promised rebirth would look like. Economic desperation and nationalist myth reinforced one another."

Another timeline: "The Nazis never won a majority of the popular vote. Thirty-seven percent in July 1932, thirty-three percent that November. Hitler entered office because elites needed a coalition partner and believed they could harness his mass movement."

Jake swallows, brows knit. Emma's insulin costs more than Mom makes in a week. The hospital closed because some bureaucrat in Washington decided rural healthcare wasn't efficient enough. "And you're saying legal maneuvering mattered more than violence? Because the Brownshirts beat the hell out of opponents. You can't chalk this up to parliamentary arithmetic alone."

"It's never either-or," Dr. Brenner replies. "Street violence intimidated opponents and signaled strength; legal maneuvers codified that advantage. The Enabling Act would not have passed if Social Democratic deputies weren't facing Brownshirt intimidation inside the Kroll Opera House."

"Institutions" and "Culture" appear on the board, connected by a double arrow. "Paxton insists we pay attention to how institutions and culture interact. If we treat fascism as just an ideology or just a set of economic conditions, we miss how the two feed each other."

Nisha sits forward. Ma's citizenship ceremony was three weeks ago. Three weeks. And now refugee admissions frozen, birthright citizenship challenged— "Twenty-six executive orders signed Monday—birthright citizenship challenged, Schedule F reinstated, refugee admissions frozen, federal DEI programs eliminated. All legal moves. All tightening executive control without congressional input. The mechanism matters more than the label we put on it."

Jake's jaw sets. Dad laid off three times. Mom working two jobs. Emma's medical bills. And people wonder why we voted for change. "Executive orders are constitutional tools every president uses. Trump won the election. Voters gave him a mandate to secure borders and streamline government. That's democracy working, not democracy dying."

"Democracy working?" Nisha's voice sharpens. "Schedule F strips civil service protections from fifty thousand federal workers. That's not streamlining—that's removing institutional checks so loyalists replace professionals who might say no."

"Checks that were blocking the president's agenda," Jake counters. "If career bureaucrats can just ignore elections, what's the point of voting? The administrative state answers to nobody."

Michael Lee jumps in. "Executive orders aren't coups. Ending DEI programs or declaring energy emergencies is policy disagreement, not fascism."

The word. Don't say it. Let them find the mechanisms themselves. Dr. Brenner interjects before the temperature spikes further. "Analogies have to be precise," he says. "Nisha's identifying speed and scope—twenty-six orders in one day using emergency declarations to bypass normal process. Jake and Michael are correct that elections continue and courts remain active. Our task is to track mechanisms without collapsing distinctions. Structural echoes don't guarantee identical outcomes, but they warrant serious analysis."

"Remember, the Brownshirts' violence became effective because the judiciary and police tolerated it. Norm erosion preceded institutional collapse. That's one reason we begin this course with the Weimar slope rather than jumping straight to 1933." He faces the U again.

Marcus raises another question. "When did ordinary Germans realize what was happening? Was there a tipping point?"

When did Grandmother Miriam know? She said she knew in '33. But did she really? Or did hindsight sharpen it? "Different communities perceived the danger on different timelines," Dr. Brenner says. "Communists and Social Democrats saw it early; many industrialists embraced the regime until war threatened profits; Jewish Germans confronted exclusion almost immediately through the April 1933 boycott and the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service."

Silence. He lets it hang.

"The point is not to paint a single awakening. It's to notice how a regime moves from toleration to active exclusion, and how fast those changes can be codified."

Michael Lee—notebook mostly blank—musters a contribution. "So, like, if everyone felt the hurt differently, how do you teach people to see the slope before it's too late?"

"We interrogate the mechanisms," Dr. Brenner answers. "Emergency powers, media capture, elite accommodation, scapegoats. The syllabus calls these the scaffolding of democratic collapse. Recognizing the scaffolding lets us intervene sooner."

The radiator clanks again. Someone shifts in their seat.

11:05. "Before we wrap, look ahead. This course tracks patterns beyond Germany. In March we move to Turkey, where a 2010 referendum reshaped the courts and a failed 2016 coup accelerated purges. Hungary follows, with Fidesz using a 2011 constitution and supermajorities to cement 'illiberal democracy.' Brazil shows a near-miss—Bolsonaro pressured institutions, but the Supreme Federal Court, the electoral tribunal, and civil society pushed back. We finish with Cuba, a communist model that diverges from fascism but still illustrates authoritarian durability."

Palms on the desk's edge. "Friday we pivot from structures to biography. Read Paxton's stages and Shirer's early chapters. Come ready to map how an obscure Austrian corporal became the center of a mass movement."

Later he has coaxed contributions from everyone: Emily's quiet insight, Sarah's legal question, Michael Lee's hesitant analogy, even Amir Hassan near the windows, who offers a quick observation about coalition fatigue. He notes it aloud so the class hears that participation matters.

The laptop closes. Chairs scrape. He lets the marker notes dry on the board before wiping them clean.

Chelsea lingers near the doorway, backpack strap twisted tight in her fist. Once the others drift into the corridor, she steps back toward the U. "Professor, I'm seriously thinking about dropping," she murmurs. "It's the first week and it already feels like we're headed into current politics. That's…kind of terrifying, and I can still swap into another elective."

The debate. She heard Nisha say "twenty-six executive orders" and Jake defend them and now she's scared.

Dr. Brenner softens his voice. "I hear you. The syllabus keeps us anchored in evidence and in 1920s Germany first. When we draw contemporary parallels, I'll make sure it's about mechanisms, not partisan point-scoring."

She squints past him at the whiteboard dates. "I want the history; I just don't want every class to turn into today's news cycle."

"If you decide to stay, I'll keep the focus on the documents and we'll name the boundary every time we cross into present day. If you decide to switch, send me a note so I can update the roster."

Chelsea nods, still uncertain. "I'll think about it tonight. Thank you for being honest." She slips out.