Johann Chapoutot, a professor of contemporary history at the Sorbonne, is the author of a dozen books translated into fifteen languages and has received numerous awards. His works include Le nazisme et l’Antiquité (PUF, 2008), Le meurtre de Weimar (PUF, 2010), and La loi du sang (Gallimard, 2014), La révolution culturelle nazie (2017), and Libres d’obéir (2020).
His latest essay, Les Irresponsables: qui a porté Hitler au pouvoir? (The Irresponsibles: Who Brought Hitler to Power?), examines how a liberal-authoritarian consortium—comprising business elites, conservative-nationalist and conservative-liberal parties, media, and administrative elites—lost all popular support. To survive, this group forms an alliance with the far right. Set in Germany between March 1930 and January 1933, the book reveals not the inevitable rise of the Nazi movement but a strategy to harness its energy for an arrogant, dilettante, and ultimately irresponsible authoritarian liberalism, paving the way for catastrophe. This chilling analysis resonates with current political trends.
In French.
